ANKARA, Oct 11 (AFP) - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged EU leaders Monday to treat Turkey fairly and ease conditions set for its membership when they meet in December to decide whether to start accession talks with the country, Anatolia news agency reported.
"We hope and expect that member nations will reach a decision with no conditions attached and that they will allow no discrimination as regards the outcome of the negotiating process," Erdogan told a gathering here. "We want to believe that Turkey will not be deprived of the... treatment reserved to other candidates."
Erdogan was referring to a report by the European Commission last week, which proclaimed Turkey ready for accession talks but said the start of negotiations would not guarantee that the country will one day join the European Union.
Ankara has complained that several recommendations by the Commission on the conduct of the accession talks are tougher than procedures applied to other candidates in the past.
"We want those issues to be rectified in the December decision," Erdogan said.
Leaders of the 25 EU countries will convene on December 17 to decide whether to invite Turkey to start membership talks.
Many are under pressure from their public opinion to bar the entry of a relatively poor, predominantly Muslim country of 70 million.
In Germany, which has Europe's largest Turkish community, it emerged Monday that the main opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union, is considering organising a petition opposing negotiations for Turkey's entry into the European Union.
But Erdogan said, "Turkey's EU membership will refute the 'clash of the civilizations' thesis and prove that different cultures can co-exist in harmony on the basis of universal principles such as pluralist democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law."