MINISTER FOR EU AFFAIRS AND CHIEF NEGOTIATOR EGEMEN BAGIS'S DECLARATION TO EL PAIS

Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis said French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Prime Minister Angela Merkel abused the issue of Turkey's membership to the EU for internal political advantage.

Bagis, in his declaration issued in the Spanish newspaper El Pais indicated that he had read all the official documents of thousands of pages regarding Turkey and EU but he had not met the expression "privileged partnership" in any of them and the French President and German Prime Minister had illusory views without content on Turkey's EU process.

Bagis expressed that most of the people who are against Turkey's accession to the EU would take their places in history books as foot notes."

He said, Turkey's EU process was being followed with great interest by 1,5 billion Muslim population in the world and young people coming to Europe from Islamic countries needed a model. Bagis indicated that these young people would make a choice between the ones who produce discrimination and violence and the ones who are working for modernisation, more democracy and human rights in their countries just like Prime Minister Erdogan.

Indicating that Turkey started the peace negotiations between Syria and Israel, had a pioneering role in arranging a settlement between Russia and Georgia and offered to be the mediator between the United States and Iran, Bagis, said that they wanted to be a peace centre.

Upon a question asking the recent dialogue process between Turkey and Armenia Bagis said:

"In order to maintain the dialogue, a stable cooperation is needed to be settled between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Turkey proposed a stability pact for Caucasus. We are different as we believe that the best way for solving the problems is negotiation rather than other means. We want to be centre for the energy transfer from the Caspian Sea to Europe."

Speaking about the preparations of AK Party to amend the Constitution Bagis stated: "We hope that we will come to terms with the opposition with the aim of reforming our Constitution and rendering our country more democratic. If needed, we can carry out a referendum. We do not want to change our state; we only want our country to be more democratic."

Bagis also stated: "Turkey has a terrorism problem, not a Kurdish problem".

Resource: AA