EU to start 'open-ended' talks with Turkey next year

BRUSSELS - European Union leaders agreed on Thursday that membership talks with Turkey would be open-ended with no guaranteed outcome and would start on October 3, 2005, EU diplomats said.

They said the leaders reached consensus on a proposal that the aim of the negotiations would be full membership, the talks would be "an open-ended process whose outcome cannot be guaranteed beforehand", and that if talks failed, a way would be found to anchor Turkey to European structures.

However, the leaders were still debating the vexed issue of Turkish recognition of Cyprus, with the Greek Cypriot government insisting that Ankara normalise ties with Nicosia before the proposed start date for EU negotiations.

The European Commission president urged Turkey on Thursday to "go the extra mile" to show Europeans it is ready for EU membership talks as the bloc prepared to approve them despite misgivings by many voters.

Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan lobbied European Union leaders intensively hours before the start of a crucial summit, urging them not to set discriminatory conditions and to open the doors of the bloc to a non-Christian nation.

Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said it was up to Turkey to demonstrate it was fit to join the club, notably by recognising Cyprus, something Ankara has so far rejected. He voiced confidence EU leaders would agree a date to open talks.

"The challenge for Turkey is to win the hearts and minds of those European citizens who are open to, but not yet fully convinced of, Turkey's European destiny," Barroso said.

"I believe Turkey must sooner rather than later break new ground. It must go the extra mile," he told a news conference.

Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said after talks with Erdogan he believed Turkey would agree to extend its existing EU pact to the 10 new member states, giving de facto recognition to Cyprus, before starting entry talks next year.

Turkish officials said Erdogan was trying to persuade the leaders not to describe the negotiations as "open-ended" or refer to possible permanent safeguards against labour migration from Turkey, a predominantly Muslim nation of 70 million.

But EU officials said both terms were likely to be in Friday's summit statement.

"They (EU) seem to have a positive approach to our sensitivities but we cannot say that all of the issues have been settled yet," Erdogan told reporters after meeting Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The Italian leader vowed to fight for an immediate date for starting talks without preconditions, saying he believed "it is in the interests of the European people and of the West to have Turkey in the EU, to smooth the dialogue between cultures".

Diplomats said Erdogan was taking a moderate tone in private meetings with EU leaders and was not threatening to walk out.

Turkey's hopes were boosted on Wednesday when French president Jacques Chirac went on television to spell out his belief that Turkish accession would spread stability and security, provided Ankara met EU conditions.

Chirac defied the views of French voters, two thirds of whom oppose admitting the sprawling, largely agrarian nation straddling Europe and the Middle East, one poll said this week.

Chirac said the talks could take 10 to 20 years, any member state could stop the negotiations at any time and the French people would have the final say in a referendum.

His endorsement and optimism about the summit outcome stoked euphoria on Turkish financial markets. The main Istanbul share index ended up 2.77 per cent at a record close. The Turkish lira was also firmer.

In an article published as EU leaders gathered in Brussels on Thursday, Erdogan wrote in the German daily Bild that the bloc should take a broader view of Europe's identity.

"If the EU wants to limit its 'identity' to Christianity -- which I think would be a mistake -- what are the millions of people in the EU who aren't Christian going to think?" he wrote.

"I believe that such an act would be detrimental to integration and even have the opposite effect," Erdogan said.

While the 25 EU leaders are near a consensus on setting a date in late 2005, doubts remained about terms they will set, and whether Erdogan can accept them.

Turkey is seeking to end over 40 years in the wealthy bloc's waiting room since it signed an association agreement in 1963.

If all goes to plan, EU leaders could agree at a dinner on Thursday evening on a date and terms for Ankara to start negotiations aimed at membership, and not an alternative "privileged partnership", which Chirac ruled out.

Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende, chairing the summit, is expected to present the EU's terms to Erdogan over breakfast on Friday before the leaders approve the final summit statement at a session starting at 11.15am (11.15pm NZT).

Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, a prominent sceptic on Turkey, was searching for consensus with fellow conservatives and Christian Democrats at a separate pre-summit meeting.

But European Parliament conservative floor leader Hans-Gert Poettering, acknowledged there was no prospect of the leaders agreeing to the "privileged partnership" his party seeks.

That left Cyprus as the potential wild card.

Asked by reporters as he left for Brussels if he might block the start of talks, Cypriot president Tassos Papadopoulos declined to rule a veto in or out.

"Certainly what is indicated are that hard negotiations will take place until the last moment," Papadopoulos said. His Greek Cypriots rejected in April a UN peace plan, accepted by the Turkish Cypriots, to reunite the divided island.

Turkey believes it has earned the right to start talks after a recommendation to EU leaders by the executive European Commission in October that it had met the strict political, human rights and rule of law criteria.

- REUTERS