ANKARA (A.A) - 31.03.2002 - Foreign Minister Ismail Cem said on Sunday, ''full membership negotiations between Turkey and the European Union (EU) may start at the EU's Copenhagen Summit to be held at the end of term presidency of Denmark.''
Speaking at a program on the private CNN Turk television channel, Cem said, ''it is possible to further develop Turkey's position in the EU during the summit meeting to be held in Sevilla, Spain; to record more progress till the summit meeting in Brussels, and to set a date for beginning of full membership negotiations between Turkey and the EU at the summit meeting to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark. We should make reasonable estimations.''
Recalling that the Partnership Council would convey in Luxembourg three weeks later, he said about the Sevilla Summit Meeting to be held in June, ''the EU may propose to begin full membership negotiations with Turkey at the summit meeting in Sevilla. It depends on our determination.''
Describing the Cyprus question as an ''external factor'' that might affect relations between Turkey and the EU, Cem said, ''I describe it as an external factor because the Foreign Affairs Ministry has been keeping the relations with Cyprus and those with the EU separate from each other. They wanted to put an expression which says 'progress of Turkey in candidacy process depends on its attitude about the Cyprus question' among decisions taken at the Helsinki Summit in 1999. We resisted against it. The Foreign Minister of Finland called me on the phone during the summit meeting in Helsinki, read out the paragraph about Turkey, and asked me to explain my view. I told him that we could not accept such a conditional candidacy. Later, the EU gave up its approach. The Cyprus question could be put as a pre-condition in Turkey's EU membership process.''
Noting that there was not a condition like Cyprus legally in Turkey-EU relations, Cem said that for Ankara, the only factor related to Cyprus was the expression made at the Helsinki Summit about extension of support to the U.N. efforts.
Cem said, ''however, the matter has absolutely a political effect on Turkey-EU relations. And this should be considered well by the EU. I don't know whether or not it wants to break its friendship with Turkey due to such a reason. This is a political matter. Legally, the EU does not have any right.''
Recalling that he had met with EU Commissioner Guenter Verheugen for Enlargement, Cem said, ''as the Foreign Ministry, we told Verheugen that opening of accession negotiation by the EU with a candidate country is an ''automotic'' event, that is, the EU can't say to a candidate country (Turkey) that 'you should do your homework and fulfil your commitments first, later we will think about opening of negotiations' in accordance with the EU acquis and regulations. There should not be such a thing. And Verheugen's response was similar. Opening of negotiations can't happen only with Verheugen's demand or statement. This is a separate issue. However, it should be like this and the European Commission once again clearly put forward in the latest meeting with us that this would be like this.''
Noting that the EU's defense and criticism regarding Turkey could be made with more moderate expressions, Cem said that also he felt concern that ''broadening of freedoms can be used against Turkey''.
Cem said, ''all of us feel concern that some steps that the government, majority of society and all of us will take with great good will can be used against Turkey and exploited in order to destroy Turkey's integrity. Now, there are two things that we can do after seeing this reality. One of them is saying 'what need have I of these freedoms? I don't want either these freedoms or the EU''. The second one which I think is the right approach is that if some freedoms can be abused within framework of the concerns we do have, then our duty is not to give up development of freedoms but to prevent abuse of these freedoms. Whose duty is this? If we are a serious state, we don't allow such an abuse.''