ISTANBUL, Feb 11 (A.A) - Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz has said that it was impossible for Turkey to join the EU in 2004 and a more realistic target was to enter the union in 2007 with Romania and Bulgaria.
Yilmaz spoke at a meeting entitled Turkey's Place in the EU organized by the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Istanbul on Monday.
Responding to a question about Turkey's estimated date to join the EU, Yilmaz said ''Turkey can definitely not join the EU in 2004 because the EU prepared a schedule. It openly declared that this schedule includes 27 members, not 28. Under normal circumstances, they aren't planning to accept us before 2010. But we want to join the EU in 2007 together with Romania and Bulgaria. We still have five more years until 2007. If we could fulfill the political criteria and start membership negotiations next year, then they might include us in the second enlargement in 2007.''
''If we fail to do this, our membership will be postponed to an uncertain date after 2010,'' he continued. ''If we don't display the necessary determination and if we don't act quickly enough, the EU Parliament will become more important. Besides certain countries which have political conflicts with us might enter the union before we do. Turkey must get itself out of this uncertain status and start membership negotiations as soon as possible.''
Answering a question about the date that the negotiations would begin, Yilmaz said that Turkey's National Program would be one year old on March 19, 2002 and underlined that Turkey has still fallen short of some of its short term goals.
During this time, Yilmaz said that the government would work to reach its remaining goals. He said that they could pass the adjustment bills in a single package before late March.
Stating that banning of capital punishment was included among Turkey's middle term goals in the National Program.
''Banning death sentence will save Turkey from isolation in all over Europe, not only in the EU. Today, in Europe, Turkey is the only country who still has capital punishment in its law although it doesn't practice it. We haven't practiced capital punishment for the last 17 years and if we also remove it from our law, it would be a step forward for Turkey which wants to become a modern state.''