BY ABDULHAMIT BILICI
ZAMAN- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who received our Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul yesterday in London, said that Turkey was quite ready to sign the protocol extending its Customs Union with present EU members to all the new states. ‘The ball is now in Brussels’ court,’ Straw said at a joint press conference following his meeting with Gul. For his part, Gul stressed that preparations to start membership negotiations with the EU in October were on track. Asked whether Greek Cypriot leader Tassos Papadopoulos could put increased pressure on Brussels to slow down Turkey’s EU process, Straw said that Britain has no wish to deal with any further problems on the Cyprus issue now, because it is high time for Ankara and Brussels to focus on the start of negotiations. Prior to his visit to the country, Gul was hoping to get London’s support for ending the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots, because Britain will this July take over the EU term presidency from the current president, Luxembourg. Gul yesterday said that he hoped positive steps would soon be taken on the issue. Gul yesterday was first interviewed by a Financial Times reporter, then had lunch with prominent representatives of British finance circles. Later he addressed members of the London office of Bloomberg, the information technology giant, where he called on British businessmen to participate in the privatizations of big companies in Turkey. Gul was then asked many questions by these businessmen covering a variety of subjects, including such sensitive ones as the Armenian problem and the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) Islamic roots. ‘What would happen if an independent Kurdish state were established in northern Iraq?’ asked one businessman. ‘This would plunge the region into greater chaos,’ Gul warned. ‘All ethnic groups must see themselves as Iraqis. We don’t want any further turmoil in the region. What would Arabs say to such a division? Not only Turks but also all regional countries want to protect Iraq’s territorial integrity.” Gul also delivered a speech at the London School of Economics. It was quite interesting that he was asked many more questions about the heavy-handed police action last week to control a women's rights demonstration on the eve of the government’s talks with top EU officials, rather than Turkey’s current reforms. Gul stressed that a full investigation on the incident was underway whose findings would be announced in a few days. Because of a demonstration by a radical leftist group in front of the school, Gul had to leave the building by the back door.