BAGIS REITERATES TURKEY'S FULL MEMBERSHIP DETERMINATION

Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis met Finland's Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen and Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb under the framework of his Finland visit.

Delivering a speech after the meetings, Bagis evaluated Turkey's position in the EU process and the meetings and said that in Turkey's 10th anniversary of achieving the candidate status, the Helsinki spirit was reviving.

Bagis said the meetings were fruitful and that intense contacts were made in little time. He added that being one of Turkey's allies in the EU, Finland once more had the opportunity to reaffirm its support to Turkey and that this was ‘an open support unlike those of other countries'.

Bagis said he was glad to be in the homeland of Ahtisaari, of Olli Rehn who supported Turkey and of Prime Minister Vanhanen and Minister Stubb who stood up for Turkey's EU membership on every platform.

Minister Bagis indicated that some Finnish officers he met emphasized that the "privileged partnership" offered to Turkey was actually an "unprivileged partnership". Bagis said that this was very important since they wouldn't let Turkey to waste time with such a thing that has no legal basis. He said "Turkey will continue the negotiations with a single option, which is full membership" and continued his speech as follows:

"Today, even the catholic weddings are open-ended. Every negotiation and every relation is open-ended actually. However, Turkey's need for the EU is not more than the EU's need for Turkey. Time is working in favor of Turkey as the country is becoming more and more important in solving the problems."

Stating that, in the meetings, the Cyprus issue was also on the agenda, Bagis said he informed the Finnish officers about the different scenarios brought up by the Greek part in order to hinder the solution and about the process Turkey was experiencing in the context of democratic initiative and the protocols signed with Armenia.

Upon a question about the comments from the foreign media that ‘Turkey has turned its face to the East and not to the West', Bagis indicated that the recent Progress Report, released by the European Commission, mentioned Turkey's contributions to EU's foreign policy perspective unlike the former reports in which human rights violations, the intellectuals in custody and examples of torture were included.

Bagis said, in the Report, it was mentioned that Turkey's role as a mediator between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Syria and Israel, Russia and Caucasus, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq and Syria and the responsibilities the country took as a member of the UN Security Council weren't in contradiction with the EU. Bagis also said that Turkey's possible mediation between Iran and the USA was crucial for the world peace and that being the 15th greatest economy of the world; Turkey can't ignore the world problems.

In the last day of his two-day official visit, Bagis met Astrid Thors, the Minister of Migration and European Affairs in Finland. Turkey's EU accession process and related issues and the cooperation opportunities of the two countries on areas such as nuclear energy and migration were discussed.

Also informing in detail about Turkey's current policy of zero problems with neighbors, Bagis said that strengthening relations with the neighboring countries wouldn't affect Turkey's tendency to favor the West.

Minister Bagis also met Eero Akaan Pettila, the vice president of the great committee responsible for EU Affairs in the parliament and was informed about the European information centre at the parliamentary building.

Source: AA