ANKARA, Jan 20 (A.A) - Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz said that Turkey could join the EU in 2007 if it uses 2002 well when he was interviewed on CNN Turk on Sunday.
Yilmaz stated that out of the 13 candidate countries, Turkey was the only one which hasn't started membership negotiations and which has an unclear membership perspective.
''If Turkey could use 2002 wisely and implement its short term targets in its National Program, there's a possibility that it could join the second expansion wave which includes Bulgaria and Romania. If this happens, Turkey can become a full member in 2007.
Yilmaz indicated that the biggest difference between the National Program and Accession Partnership Document was the banning of the death penalty.
Through a constitutional change, Yilmaz said that the death penalty's area was made smaller and it is now theoratically given to only war and terrorism criminals. He said however this was not found sufficient in the Progress Report.
''Turkey made this as a temporary regulation. Our goal is to totally ban capital punishment and we have a chance. The change in the Turkish Penal Code will be presented to Parliament. I think we can ban capital punishment within this year although it is among Turkey's middle term goals,'' he said.
Speaking about Turkey's participation in the EU convention, Yilmaz said ''Turkey's existence in the convention is a signal for Europe's future.''
''Turkey could carry the Islamic world's views to teh EU and EU's values to the Islamic world. Therefore, I believe we can have great contributions to the convention,'' he commented.
About the upcoming general elections in Germany, Yilmaz said if the Christian Democrats come to power, Turkey's Eu membership process would be negatively affected although such a possibility was quite low.
Commenting on Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's visit to the United States, Yilmaz said that he had certain worries before the visit.
''But we were happy to see that most of expectations were met during the visit,'' he continued. ''Our biggest wish was to add an economic dimension to the bilateral relations between Turkey and the United States. The U.S. side welcomed this proposal. They stated that they wanted to develop economic relations and even institutionalize this. This is a very important development for Turkey and we should be seeing its positive outcomes in the near future.''
''Our biggest fear was to face a fait accompli regarding Iraq. But we saw that there was no need to worry. The U.S. administration stated that they had currently no plans for a military intervention against Iraq and they would consult Turkey in case of a possible operation to this country,'' he said.