BERLIN, Oct 15 (AFP) - The main German opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) said on Friday it had abandoned plans for a petition against negotiations for Turkey's entry into the European Union.
CDU leader Angela Merkel has dropped the idea because she feared it might be misinterpreted, one of the leaders of the party's parliamentary group, Volker Kauder, told ZDF television.
Merkel has been pushing for the EU to develop a "privileged relationship" with Turkey rather than allow the predominantly Muslim nation to enter the EU. The idea of a petition was backed by Edmund Stoiber, the leader of the CSU, the CDU's ultraconservative sister party in the powerhouse state of Bavaria.
But several conservatives voiced concern that such a move would be interpreted as hostility towards the two and a half million Turks who live in Germany and could hurt the CDU at the ballot box.
According to opinion polls, the CDU are well placed to win the next general election in 2006.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose Social Democrats govern in a coalition with the Greens, has said he will vote in favour of Turkey beginning membership talks at an EU summit on December 17.
The president of the country's Turkish community, Hakki Keskin, warned this week that such a petition "would be taken as a declaration of war against Turkey and Turks living in Germany".
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due to visit Berlin on October 26 for talks with Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac.
Last week, the European Commission recommended that accession talks between the EU and Turkey should start, but warned that membership could still be many years away.