ATHENS, Dec 14 (AFP) - The Greeks are divided over whether their traditional rival and neighbour Turkey should join the European Union, with 47.9 percent for and 45.3 percent against, according to an opinion poll published Tuesday.
Among those in favour, a majority said said Turkey should be admitted to the EU if it "fufills criteria set by European partners."
An EU summit convening in Brussels Friday will decide on whether to begin membership negotiations with Turkey, whose past attempts to join have been frustrated by its perceived human rights record. Greece is already an EU member.
A majority -- 49.3 percent -- believed membership would improve bilateral relations, dogged until recently by decades of mutual suspicion sometimes leading to the brink of war.
Only 15.8 percent did not share that view, while 23.6 thought Turkey's membership would not affect bilateral links, which have improved in recent years.
Some 46.9 percent said Greece should apply its veto to Turkish membership negotiations at the Brussels summit if Turkey did not recognise the Greek Cypriot republic beforehand.
Cyprus has been divided since Turkey invaded the island in 1974 to protect the Turkish minority. A Turkish republic set up in the north of the island is recognised only by Ankara.
A sizeable minority of 32.4 percent spoke in favour of a compromise solution on Cyprus, while 8.3 percent said Greece should fall into line with its EU partners if they decided to go ahead with Turkish membership talks even if Turkey does not recognise the Greek Cypriot republic.
The telephone poll was conducted for the Greek television station ANT1 between December 10 and 12 among 618 people in the Athens region.
Greece broadly supports Turkish integration into the EU, seeing this as a means of defusing tensions with its NATO partner and rival over territorial rights and reach a settlement on Cyprus.
Greece said last month it expected the summit to set up a mechanism to normalize relations between Turkey and the internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot government before giving Ankara the green light to start accession talks.
But Turkey has said it would consider demands to recognize Cyprus only after the 25-member EU gives Ankara the go-ahead to begin accession talks.
Only the Greek Cypriot part of the island joined the EU last May 1, after Greek Cypriots rejected in a referendum a UN blueprint to reunify Cyprus.
12/14/2004 14:01 GMT - AFP