Schroeder pressures Turkey on EU reform, stresses non-Muslim freedoms
EUbusiness (press release), UK
May 4 2005
Document Actions 04/05/2005
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Wednesday urged Turkey to fully
implement the democracy reforms it adopted to achieve European Union
norms and called for more freedoms for Christian communities in this
Muslim-majority country.
Schroeder, a staunch supporter of Turkey’s EU membership bid, assured
Ankara that the bloc was determined to open accession talks with
Turkey on schedule on October 3.
“The dynamics of reform should continue,” Schroeder told reporters
after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “The
constitutional and other legal amendments should be put into practice.”
Referring to concerns that France will vote down the European
constitution at a May 29 referendum and plunge the EU into crisis,
the German leader said: “No referendum anywhere in Europe will affect
Turkey’s EU process.”
Schroeder also renewed EU demands from Turkey to expand the freedoms
of its non-Muslim comminuties, mostly Orthodox Christians and Jews.
“Religious freedom is a European principle,” Schroder said. “It is
indisputabe and is valid for Turkey as well. People should freely
practice their religions.”
Turkey is under pressure to remove legal obstacles for non-Muslim
religious foundations to fully exercise their property rights and to
open a Greek Orthodox seminary in Istanbul closed down more than 30
years ago.
Schroeder also backed a Turkish proposal to Armenia for the creation
of a joint commission of historians to study allegations that the
Ottoman Turks committed genocide against their Armenian subjects
during World War I.
“We want Turkish-Armenian relations to improve,” Schroeder said.
“Germany is ready to do its best to help in this issue and open
its archives.”
Germany and the Ottoman Empire, from which the present-day Turkish
Republic was born, were allies during World War I, when the Armenian
massacres occured.
Turkey has come under mounting international pressure to recognize
the 1915-1917 killings as genocide; some EU politicians, including
the German opposition, argue that Ankara should address the genocide
claims if it wants to join the European bloc.
Erdogan denounced an appeal issued by the German parliament last
month calling on Ankara to face up to its history.
He said he “conveyed our serious concerns and expectations” on the
issue to Schroeder.
The two leaders said they also discussed the Cyprus conflict, a major
stumbling block to Turkey’s EU membership bid.
Schroeder pledged he would work for the release of a 259 million
euromillion dollar) EU aid package earmarked for the breakaway Turkish
Cypriot community and the activation of measures aimed at easing trade
restriction imposed on the island’s Turkish sector. The EU promised
the aid last year as a reward for the strong support Turkish Cypriots
gave to a UN peace plan, which was killed off by an overwhelming “no”
by the internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot side.
The measures have been blocked, however, because of opposition by
the Greek Cypriots, who joined the EU in May 2004.
Schroeder’s Social Democrats-Greens coalition has been a staunch
supporter of Turkey’s EU aspirations, but Germany’s main opposition
Christian Democratic Union advocates a special status for Turkey
rather than full membership.
Germany is Turkey’s largest trading partner and home to the largest
Turkish immigrant community in Europe, some 2.5 million people.
Schroeder is scheduled to meet President Ahmet Necdet Sezer before
heading to Istanbul later Wednesday, where he will visit the spiritual
leader of the Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I,
and attend a meeting of Turkish and German business people.