Erdogan: We Worked Hard With Good Will And Great Effort

BRUSSELS (AA) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday, ''we, as the parliament, government, political parties, state and non-governmental organizations of Turkey and most importantly the Turkish nation, have worked hard with extraordinary good-will and exerted great efforts in the last two years of our long-standing and difficult EU journey.''
Holding a news conference together with Foreign Minister & Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul, State Minister Besir Atalay, and Finance Minister Kemal Unakitan, Prime Minister Erdogan assessed results of the EU Summit in Brussels.
''We have reached a critical turning point in of 41-year EU journey. We, as the parliament, government, political parties, state and non-governmental organizations of Turkey and most importantly the Turkish nation, have worked hard with extraordinary good-will and exerted great efforts in the last two years of our long-standing and difficult EU journey. The Turkish nation considers the EU as the address of peace and cooperation among civilizations. We thought that the EU should become a global force contributing to peace in the world. We targeted that the EU should give message to the whole world: Democracy and human rights are common desire and target of the whole humanity. This target can be achieved only through a deep civilization project,'' he said.
Prime Minister Erdogan noted, ''in line with those principles, we have worked hard day and night with a great determination in the last two years. We have made a series of deep-rooted legal and social changes, which could not be achieved by the other countries in 10-20 years, by believing in the promises given us at the EU Copenhagen Summit in 2002. Our nation has accomplished a marvelous transformation which is called a silent revolution by friendly countries. We have fulfilled these since we believed that Turkey should adopt and implement such modern values. On numerous occasions, our European counterparts expressed their admiration and appreciation with our performance.''
''Consequently, then EU Commissioner for Enlargement Guenter Verheugen said three months ago, prior to the release of the European Commission's Progress Report for Turkey on October 6th, that Turkey had successfully fulfilled the criteria mentioned at the EU Copenhagen Summit in 2002, and that there was not any other obstacle in front of the negotiations,'' Prime Minister Erdogan added.
(UK-MS)
17.12.2004 - 19:49:00