British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Tuesday discussed a compromise to stop Turkey’s bid to join the European Union from crashing next month.
Ollie Rehn, the EU enlargement commissioner, on Tuesday gave Turkey a month to usher in far-reaching human rights reforms and open ports and airports to Greek Cypriot ships and planes or see entry talks fail.
Speaking in Ankara, Rehn said there was still time to stop a ”train crash” in the accession talks, but it was crucial that ”new initiatives are taken and tangible progress is still achieved” before the commission presents its report on November 8. Since accession talks began, Austria, Germany and France have become increasingly disenchanted at the prospect of Turkey joining the EU. Blair has emerged as Turkey’s leading champion in Europe, partly because he is keen to have a Muslim country inside the EU to counter criticism that it is a Christian club.
A Turkish government source said on Tuesday the compromise was still at a sensitive stage and would require goodwill on all sides. The source said that, in order to meet EU criticism of its human rights record, Erdogan is expecting changes to the Turkish penal code to go through Parliament this month.
Rehn demanded that Turkey scrap article 301 of its penal code that has been used in 70 cases against authors, including the renowned novelist Orhan Pamuk, journalists and intellectuals for ”insulting Turkishness”. ”It is high time Turkey brings the penal code into line with the European Convention on Human Rights,” he said. ”Nowhere is there such a sweeping conception of insulting, say, Englishness or Finnishness.”
Turkish leaders, including Erdogan, have threatened to walk away from the EU membership talks over the last few weeks. Erdogan insists that, to allow access to Turkish ports and landing strips to Greek Cypriots, the EU must also end the diplomatic and economic isolation of Turkish Cyprus. Turkey, which invaded northern Cyprus in 1974, is the only country in the world that recognises Turkish Cyprus.
During talks in Downing Street, Blair and Erdogan discussed ways to end the stalemate. The favoured plan is for Famagusta, the key port in Turkish Cyprus, to re-open under United Nations control in exchange for the return of the Greek Cypriot district of Varosha to its owners. – Guardian Unlimited Â