| European Union seeks to address Turkey Membership Talks |
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Foreign ministers of the European Union (EU) will meet on Thursday seeking to remove last-minute obstacles to membership talks with Turkey, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported.
ypriot Foreign Minister George Iacovou said he is ’optimistic’ that EU accession talks with Turkey will begin next month despite Ankara’s refusal to recognise the government in Nicosia.
’Let me say that I am optimistic that they will start,’ Iacovou told reporters when asked whether he expected the negotiations to begin on October 3 as planned.
Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, and complications thrown up by its refusal to recognise the Cypriot government, has been a key topic at a two-day informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Wales.
A Turkish official said Turkish leaders were becoming “disillusioned” and “frustrated” with their EU bid, but would press European leaders to honour their agreement to open accession talks.
Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik proposed yesterday that Turkey be given a special relationship and not full membership, a suggestion supported by officials in Slovakia, France, and the Christian Democrats in Germany who are widely expected to win Germany’s September 18 general election.
Polls in many European countries have showed that the public has serious misgivings about letting in Turkey and voters in the Netherlands and France voted down accepting the European constitution, in part due to opposition to accepting Turkey.
Doubts about starting talks with Turkey are not “because of any fault of my government, but rather because of certain countries within the EU,” The Economist quoted Gul as saying.
“No one should expect Turkey to make any concessions this time,” Gul was quoted as saying. “We have stuck to our side of the bargain, the EU should stick to theirs.”
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| 843 Dead in Baghdad Stampede - Sep 1, 2005 8:6 IST |
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THE death toll in the worst single loss of life since the start of the Iraq war was last night heading towards 1,000 after a crowd of about one million Shiite pilgrims making their way across a bridge in Baghdad panicked at reports of a suicide bomber in their midst and stampeded.
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