LISBON, Dec 16 (AFP) - Turkey wants the European Union to set a clear date for the start of entry talks with Ankara in 2005 when leaders of the bloc meet at a two-day summit that gets underway Thursday, a senior Turkish government official said in an interview published here.
"The date for negotiations, and a timetable for the talks, must be as precise as possible, there must be a clear starting point," State Minister Mehmet Aydin told daily newspaper Publico.
"As for a date, we feel it should not be very much after the start of the second semester of 2005, in the worst-case scenario."
EU leaders are widely expected to give the green light for the start of entry negotiations with Turkey at the summit in Brussels however last-ditch haggling over the exact terms of the offer, including over the timetable for the talks, continue.
French President Jacques Chirac wants to delay the start of talks until later next year at the earliest in order to give Paris the chance to get its referendum on the new EU constitution out of the way first.
France and a number of other EU members also maintain that the European bloc should also consider a special status for Turkey, widely referred to as "priviliged partnership," as an alternative to the nation's eventual membership.
Ankara has vehemently rejected such proposals.
"It is not fair to say that if talks with Turkey fail, a certain alternative plan should be spelled out because this was never said to any of the other previous candidates," Aydin told the newspaper.
"All negotiations are an open-ended process, it is not necessary to spell that out," he added.
Turkey, which has been knocking on the European bloc's door for over 40 years, cautioned on the eve of the two-day EU summit that it will not agree to start negotiations "at any price".
12/16/2004 09:32 GMT - AFP