ANKARA - Dick Berlijn, the Chief of General Staff of the Netherlands, country which assumes the European Union (EU) Acting Presidency, signaled on Tuesday that Turkey should re-shape relationship between the civilians and military within the framework of EU norms.
Berlijn delivered a speech in a conference on ''Turkey's Expectations from EU Membership - Role of the Armed Forces'' in Turkish capital of Ankara.
''Although Turkish government had implemented many reforms since Helsinki Summit, the EU Commission announced in November 2003 that Turkey need to make more progress in some areas'', Berlijn said. Berlijn noted that one of those was related to the influence of the armed forces.
Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) had played an important role to found the modern Turkish Republic, Berlijn stated. He said, ''taking into consideration this particular situation, the EU thinks that Turkish army should accept that it should adopt a different position in politics from now on.''
''In this context, the chief of general staff should have a less influential position, and the parliament should have the right to control the defense budget'', Berlijn pointed out.
Noting that the EU would start negotiations with Turkey without delay in case it thought that Turkey complied with all the Copenhagen criteria, Berlijn added that EU had promised that the progress report to be made public in October would be fair and based on realities.
Berlijn added that Turkey still needed to do more to implement reforms on the road to EU membership.
(BRC-ULG) 14.09.2004