Turkey's EU Membership Talks To Go Ahead
It was decided last week that the European Union and Turkey are to begin talks
about the possibility of the country becoming a member of the EU. The agreement came after hours of wrangling over the issue of Cyprus. Reuters revealed on Friday that Turkey pledged unilaterally to sign
a protocol extending its EU association agreement to the 10 new member states,
including Cyprus, before it starts entry talks. However, the text will be adapted to take account of the special situation
on the divided island. In return, Jan Peter Balkenende, holder of the EU presidency,
agreed to spell out that this was not tantamount to recognition of the Greek
Cypriot government in Nicosia. Speaking late last week, Mr Balkenende revealed that the negotiations will
commence on October 3, 2005. He explained that: "The goal of these negotiations is EU membership. The talks will have
an open ended character, meaning that there is no guaranteed outcome." He went on to add: "We also discussed the issue of what we will do if the talks are not successful.
We agreed that we have to make sure that a candidate member state will be anchored
in European structures." .
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