BY FIKRET BILA
MILLIYET- This week on news channel Haber Turk, former Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz weighed in on the current state of Turkish-European Union relations. During his terms as both premier and deputy PM, Yilmaz pursued a path towards EU membership. If the Motherland Party (ANAP), (which Yilmaz led until recently) were in power today instead of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Yilmaz would make the same decisions. Under the Ecevit government, the most difficult decision was ending the death penalty in August 2002. Today Yilmaz supports the steps taken by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government. He even wants other EU requests to be met, like opening Christian schools for clergy. However, Yilmaz harshly criticized last week’s historic EU report.
Yilmaz zeroed in on the following sentence in the report, ‘Whatever are the results of the negotiations, Turkey should attach itself to the values and institutions of the EU.’ Yilmaz said that this stipulation could lead to something other than full membership and that with this approach, the EU isn’t keeping its promise to Turkey. Yilmaz charged that the report was generally rude in manner. These criticisms carry more meaning coming from Yilmaz, who supports the steps taken by Erdogan’s government and lauds their success. Yilmaz is also urging Ankara to insist that the report be corrected in this direction before the December EU summit. The government has said it would work for this. However, the difference with Yilmaz is that he believes if these defects aren’t corrected and a net perspective of membership negotiations isn’t given by Dec. 17, Ankara should stake everything. He himself did this after the 1997 Luxembourg summit. Ankara will experience hard days until the summit. The government should plan responses to all contingencies.