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EU backs Turkey's constitutional reform
EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle was speaking at a joint press conference following the EU-Turkey High Level Political Dialogue Meeting on Tuesday. Füle and the EU's high representative for foreign policy, Catherine Ashton, representing the EU, had talks with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and Turkey's chief EU negotiator, Egemen Bağış. The talks covered a wide range of areas, including Turkey's membership bid, the Iran dispute and Turkish-Israeli tensions.
Davutoğlu said at the press conference that Turkey would continue to play a role in efforts to peacefully resolve the international dispute over Iran's nuclear program.
The objective of Tuesday's meeting was to reaffirm the EU's commitment to Turkey and explore ways the EU and Turkey can enhance cooperation in the region at a time when many in the West are concerned that Ankara is drifting away from the West to build alliances in the East.
“Turkey has recently started to become more assertive in its foreign policy. We welcome the increasingly important role of Turkey in the region. In this context we will also look at the ways in which the EU and Turkey can enhance cooperation,” Ashton said on Monday ahead of the meeting.
During a visit to London last week, Davutoğlu reiterated that Turkey’s EU bid is his number one priority, noting that Turkey’s Middle Eastern diplomacy complements its EU bid.
“What we are trying to achieve in the Middle East is to establish an order based on rule of law, democracy, human rights, economic independency and co-cultural existence,” Davutoğlu explained. “These are common values of the European Union.”
Last month, reiterating that EU membership is a “strategic goal” for Turkey and recalling that 18 out of the total of 35 negotiating chapters in Ankara’s accession negotiations with the bloc cannot be opened due to blocks placed by various countries or individuals, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Özügergin said: “The EU should give thought as to where it wants to go with Turkey. You don’t open the chapters and then say, ‘Your axis has shifted’.”
Turkey, which formally began accession negotiations with the EU in 2005, has so far opened talks on only 13 chapters.
“The political dialogue provides for a timely confirmation of Turkey’s perspective of EU membership and the continuation of the enlargement process. I hope that more chapters can be opened this year, if Turkey meets the necessary conditions. Of course the engine of the whole process is the reforms taking place in Turkey. The commission will continue to support Turkey in carrying out these reforms,” Füle said on Monday.
In a statement delivered ahead of yesterday’s meeting, Brussels underlined that the political dialogue in İstanbul will be of “a strategic nature, focusing on the collaboration of the EU and Turkey in the wider region.” It added, “The two sides will also discuss the EU-Turkey accession negotiations and the fight against terrorism.”
The EU-Turkey Political Dialogue meeting is part of regular bilateral meetings between the EU and Turkey, taking place on a ministerial level twice a year.
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