NIGDE (A.A) - 23.05.2002 - Commenting on EU-Turkey relations, Bahceli said that the present government made important progress towards Turkey's EU membership, when he spoke in Nigde's Bor township on Thursday.
''Turkey-EU relations have a history of 40 years. Several important steps were taken towards Turkey's full EU membership after 1999 Helsinki Meeting in our government's time. Turkey presented its national program as a road map. For over a year, Turkey has been fulfilling its commitments on its national program and now it hopes that the negotiations with the EU would start in the near future.''
''Parliament is passing adjustments laws with this purpose. The Interior Ministry and the EU General Secretariat briefed the leaders of the coalition parties at a leaders summit on May 22. Leaders will assess this information in the coming days,'' he added.
Bahceli denied that his party, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) was blocking Turkey's road to EU membership. ''These are wrong assessments,'' he continued. ''Many political institutions, NGOs, intellectuals and a majority of our people want Turkey to join the EU. Therefore, it has become a state policy, both for the government and the opposition. Everybody is working to achieve this result. The present government made the biggest progress towards the EU and the MHP is a part of this government.''
The MHP leader also commented on the capital punishment and broadcast in Kurdish language.
''Since 1984, a total of 57 capital punishment sentences were not approved by Parliament,'' Bahceli said. ''Many political institutions want capital punishment to be abolished in Turkey. In EU and EU candidate countries, there is no capital punishment. With the most recent constitutional change, Turkey decided to lift death sentence except for crimes of terrorism and war. Now, there are demands to lift it even in these situations. This is a critical issue for Turkey which fought against separatist terrorism for 15 years. We have to explain this very well to our European friends.''