“Turkey taking its place in the EU is in the best interests of the EU. The EU should be proud” of having Turkey as a member, Ahmadinejad told reporters at a press conference late on Monday in İstanbul, where he attended a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and had talks with President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the sidelines of the gathering. “Having a country like Turkey, which is a cradle of civilization, brings credibility to the EU. Turkey’s people are cultured, strong and righteous. Those who form a bond of friendship with these people do not lose, they only gain from it.”Ahmadinejad also advised the EU not to put too much pressure on Ankara if it wants to benefit from Turkish membership.
Turkey opened accession talks with the EU in 2005, but there has been limited progress since then as some EU countries oppose the idea of having a predominantly Muslim country with a population of 70 million as a member. The government is now facing criticism that it is replacing Turkey’s traditionally Western-oriented foreign policy with one focused more on good relations with its Middle Eastern neighbors and a more effective role within the Muslim world.
Asked to comment on suggestions that the closer ties the Turkish government has built with Iran in the recent years could result in Turkey’s losing its Western allies, Ahmadinejad said Turkey is a great country that is free to build ties in a way to best serve its interests.
“It’s not right to limit Turkey, which is a big country. Turkey can establish a relationship with any country as long as it sees this as favorable for its own interests. This is up to Turkey,” Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.
He went on to criticize the Western countries, saying that just a few Western nations call themselves the “international community” while classifying the rest as of the world second-class societies. “They think that having good relations with Europe is the way to progress but that having those relations with other countries is not,” he said. “Turkey, Iran, Asia are all cradles of civilization, while some European countries have black stains on their history. Who waged the first and second world wars? Who killed 100 million people?” he asked.
A visit to Tehran last month by Prime Minister Erdoğan has been interpreted as an additional factor in strengthening the perception of a shift in Ankara’s foreign policy axis. The fact that Erdoğan’s visit to Iran came two weeks after Turkey barred Israel from a NATO exercise -- a decision that angered Israel -- has further encouraged such analysis.
