EU opens door for Turkey’s entry
Foreign Desk Report

LUXEMBOURG—Turkey and the European Union governments agreed Monday to open membership talks after Austria dropped a demand that the bloc come to some form of partnership with Ankara that would be less than full-fledged participation. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said his country had agreed to the EU’s terms for opening the negotiations and that he would be coming to Luxembourg.
“We have reached agreement. Inshallah, we are departing for Luxembourg,” Gul said as he left the governing party headquaters after a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Foreign Ministry said Gul left immediately for the airport. Gul earlier had delayed his departure from Ankara, insisting his country cannot accept second-class citizen status in the EU.
Austria had been resisting the bid by Turkey, a predominantly Muslim nation, to join the EU and is demanding the EU grant Ankara something short of full membership in case Turkey cannot meet all membership obligations. Opening membership talks requires the unanimous approval of all 25 EU governments. Diplomats said Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik had relented, accepting language in the negotiating rules that state unambiguously that “the shared objective of the negotiations is (Turkey’s) accession.” The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. No specific details were released about the deal, reached after hours of arduous negotiations that began Sunday. Turkey and the European Union edged toward a historic agreement on membership talks on Monday as Ankara studied EU proposals hammered out in a tense day of talks amid Austrian resistance. The opening ceremony was delayed several hours as wrangling over Austrian and Turkish objections to a talks framework text dragged into the second day of an EU foreign ministers’ meeting. “It depends now on Ankara, if they can agree the text. It is within reach,” a senior EU diplomat said after Austria signaled it was ready to lift its reservations.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had earlier said the 25-nation bloc was “on the edge of a precipice” after Turkish objections to a clause it fears could affect NATO membership piled on top of Austrian demands that the Muslim nation be offered an alternative short of full membership. The United States lent a hand to try to rescue the stalled talks after Turkey objected to a clause it feared could affect its ability to keep Cyprus out of NATO. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to assure him that the proposed EU negotiating framework would not impinge on NATO, a State Department official said. Current EU president Britain still hoped to hold the opening ceremony on Monday but it would clearly be much later than the planned 5 p.m. (1500 GMT) start. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul took the draft negotiating document, dispatched by Britain, to the headquarters of the ruling AK party for a political evaluation. Officials said he would only begin the roughly four-hour journey from Ankara to Luxembourg once Turkey was satisfied with the text and the EU had adopted it.
Turkish financial markets rose with hopes of a deal after yo-yoing with the uncertainty. Stocks, which had fallen some 2.3 percent from Friday’s close, ended up 1.9 percent as Ankara studied the draft agreement. The lira and bonds also recovered earlier losses against the dollar. Straw telephoned Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel to clinch agreement on a formula to satisfy Austrian concerns that the EU may not be able to absorb the vast, poor, Muslim country. Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik confirmed that her country had dropped its objection to the key phrase that the shared aim of the negotiations was accession but wanted strong assurances on the EU’s “absorption capacity.”
Straw earlier told the 24 other EU foreign ministers upon resuming talks after only a couple of hours’ sleep: “Yes, we are near (to a deal) but we are also on the edge of a precipice. “If we go the right way we reach the sunny uplands. If we go the wrong way, it could be catastrophic for the European Union.” In Ankara, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told a meeting of the ruling AK party that Turkey was not prepared to compromise further on the conditions for opening the long-awaited talks. “Those in the EU who cannot digest Turkey being in the EU are against the alliance of civilizations. What I declare is this: the costs resulting from all this will be paid by them.” Turkey has frequently portrayed its entry to the EU as a way of bridging a gap between the Christian and Islamic worlds and easing tensions that may have fostered Islamic militancy.
Diplomats said Ankara had objected to a clause in the EU negotiating mandate that stipulates it may not block accession of EU states to international organizations and treaties.