BERLIN, Sept 2 (AFP) - Turkey may join the European Union "perhaps only in 10 or 15 years" but its membership is a key to the fight against international terrorism, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Thursday.
"Turkey is not yet ripe for the European Union and it knows that," Fischer, whose country has been a major supporter of Ankara's bid to join the EU, told the mass-circulation Bild Zeitung.
But he said that Turkey "must definitively enter Europe, and that will be the case at the end of accession negotiations -- perhaps in only 10 or 15 years."
"In addition, Turkey must energetically continue down the path it has chosen: to consistently put in action important reform," Fischer said.
He said Ankara had made important advances in a number of domains, including abolition of the death penalty, a ban on torture and the release of political prisoners.
"We cannot do without a European Turkey to fight international terrorism," Fischer went on. "If we close the European door on this country, that will give more weight to forces that oppose democracy and western values."
"That would be dangerous for us," he said.
The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, will release its report on Turkey's progress on democratic reform on October 6, which will say whether it recommends or not opening accession talks with the mainly Muslim nation.
Ankara has passed numerous democracy reforms to meet the Union's political criteria and believes those steps should be enough to ensure it can begin membership talks after EU leaders officially assess the report in December.
In addition to the democratic overhaul, it has to battle doubts among European leaders on whether the EU can absorb a vast and relatively poor country of some 70 million inhabitants with a strong Islamic faith.
It must also recognise the divided island of Cyprus which, represented by its Greek Cypriot side, joined the EU on May 1.