Military

DATE=12/12/02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

NUMBER=2-297410

TITLE=E-U TURKEY (S)

BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON

DATELINE=COPENHAGEN

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The European Union says it will review Turkey's candidacy for membership in the bloc in December 2004 and open accession talks with Ankara as soon as the E-U judges it to have met its criteria for democracy and human rights. V-O-A correspondent Roger Wilkison reports the E-U decision will not sit well with Turkey, which had demanded that its membership negotiations should begin in 2003.

TEXT: Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, whose country holds the E-U's rotating presidency, gave no indication of a precise starting date for Turkey to begin its accession talks.

But he says the negotiations will start as soon as the E-U decides that Turkey is a full-fledged democracy and meets E-U requirements on human rights and the rule of law.

Mr. Rasmussen told reporters at the E-U summit in Copenhagen that the E-U will review Turkey's progress toward meeting those E-U requirements at the end of 2004.

The announcement will disappoint the Turks, who have been pushing for a 2003 date to start their membership talks. Turkish diplomats are especially worried that, by the end of 2004, the E-U will have 25 instead of 15 members and that it will be more difficult for Turkey to obtain a consensus from bloc members that they have made progress on human rights issues.

The Copenhagen summit is expected to invite ten, mostly former communist countries to join the E-U as it seeks to seal the bloc's expansion beyond the former Iron Curtain. (signed)

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