ISTANBUL - Justice and Development Party (AK Party) leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that Turkey will fulfil Copenhagen criteria whether EU admits Turkey as a member or not.
Addressing a dinner hosted by his party, Erdogan said that the governmnet will start to deal with problems in the country after it gets the vote of confidence.
Referring to his visits to EU countries, Erdogan said that he took representatives of NGOs with him and that he took positive results from his contacts.
''The thing that matters is trust. Foreign capital wants confidence in a country. Whenever it find that trust, it will come to Turkey,'' said Erdogan, noting that politics is not to produce problems but to find solutions to problems.
Referring to basic rights and freedoms, Erdogan said that ''torture will definitely end in Turkey. There can be no torture in country of freedom. There will also no be telephone tapping from now on.''
Erdogan said that he will go to EU countries again on Monday.
Noting that he visited seven countries last week, Erdogan said that ''we reached our first goal. Our target was to explain ourself. We tell all EU states that we favour negotiations and that we are not closed to negotiations. We will explain the same things during our second tour to seven EU countries this week.''
Erdogan said that Turkey is not a country of problems, but that of solutions, adding that ''we will explain that Turkey is resolved to make a 40-year dream come true. We will fulfill Copenhagen criteria whether EU admits us or not. We will try to increase the income per capita from 2,500 U.S. dollars to 5,000-10,000-15,000 U.S. dollars not to be admitted to the EU, but as we think our people deserve that.''
''If EU won't admit Turkey with different views, this will be a test for EU. This will be recorded in history. Turkey is ready for EU membership,'' he said.