Turkey talks tough as EU tries to lure it

On the eve of the two-day summit, it emerged that Ankara had rejected proposals under which Turkey would have been declared eligible for EU membership in the longer term. In the meantime, it would be offered a place in a new European Conference — to be launched in parallel with, but separate from, the enlargement negotiations.

Luxembourg was obliged to cancel a post-summit dinner to be held Saturday night after Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz said he would not attend.

A spokesman for the Turkish delegation, Haluk Ilicak, said yesterday it was always possible to find a compromise.

But, he said: "We are accepting conditions for opening negotiations, but we cannot accept these conditions to be candidates."

European Commission spokesman Nikolaus Van der Pas said proposals suggested by Commission President Jacques Santer on Wednesday had not yet been proposed to Turkey — whose campaign for EU membership dates back to 1963 — by the Union as a whole.

Santer called on Turkey to prove its interest in joining the EU by such "gestures" as taking a constructive approach to the issue of Cyprus, which has been divided since Turkey invaded the northern region third in 1974.

In return, Turkey wanted the EU to give "unequivocal confirmation" of its membership prospects, he said.

Van der Pas said: "If the 15-member states say what Santer said on Wednesday, let’s see what Turkey has to say to that."

He added that the pan-European Conference was part of a broader package, including full implementation of the Customs Union between the EU and Turkey which took effect in January last year.

Asked whether Turkey’s arch-rival Greece was under pressure to back the former’s inclusion in the Conference, he said: "If the 14 (of the 15 EU member states) want to go in that direction, that is already pressure on Greece."

Germany, which has some two million Turks on its soil, and has also voiced opposition to Turkey’s rapprochement with the EU, now backs its inclusion "allowing for degrees of agreement," according to Van der Pas.

Britain, which will be responsible for smoothing over the row from January, when it takes over the EU presidency from Luxembourg, was committed to getting the conference up and running with Turkey fully engaged, a British spokesman said.

But he made it clear that Britain would not abandon a key condition on Turkey participating in the council — that it agree to take its territorial disputes with Greece to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

In his address to the EU summit, French President Jacques Chirac said the Union should ensure Turkey is "anchored" to Europe.

According to French officials, quoting the closed-door speech to heads of state and government, Chirac said that would be "the best way to guarantee the development of this country towards democracy and economic development."

The European Parliament’s speaker Jose Maria Gil Robles reiterated that before negotiations opened with Ankara, Turkey "must fulfill certain conditions, end the occupation of northern Cyprus, respect human and minority rights."

The summit is expected to agree that the start of the enlargement process next spring should involve the 11 applicants so far acknowledged by the EU, with actual accession negotiations starting shortly afterwards only with the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia, considered the most advanced of the former communist countries, and Cyprus.