BAGIS EXPLAINS TURKEY'S EU PROCESS ON ESTONIAN ETV CHANNEL

Visiting Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, as the second leg of his visit to Baltic countries; Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis appeared as a guest on the program "Aktuaalne Kaamera" on the Estonian ETV channel.

Stating that the most important thing that Turkey offered to the European Union was peace and stability, Bagis said Turkey was an important mediator for peace in its region and that Turkey's accession would raise the credibility of EU for Asian countries.

The fact that Turkey was the mediator in the peace negotiations between Israel and Syria and its role as a mediator between USA and Iran were also mentioned in the program.

Pointing to the prejudice that Turkey's accession would bring Islamization to Europe, Bagis said those prejudices were groundless and added that there were so many issues on which they had to work together with the EU like the climate change, economic crisis, energy crisis, illegal immigration, narcotics and terrorism and that none of those issues had anything to do with religion.

In his interview, Egemen Bagis mentioned the level Turkey had reached in terms of democracy, human rights and freedom of expression and stated that he believed that Turkey would meet the required EU accession criteria.

Source: http://uudised.err.ee/