Posted in European Union, Government of Turkey, Turkish Press on Jun 9th, 2011
Turkey’s EU bid has been largely absent from the campaign ahead of Sunday’s general elections, mirroring a dwindling Turkish confidence in the bloc as membership talks linger at a standstill. A recent survey by the research institute TESEV showed that 69 percent of Turks support their country’s endeavour to join the European Union, but only [...]
Posted in EU Visa Policy, European Union, Government of Turkey, Turkish Press on May 3rd, 2011
Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Monday that EU’s reluctance to start visa talks with Turkey discredits EU, not Turkey. “EU starts talks even with Russia and Ukraine [to remove visa restrictions] but not with Turkey. It discredits EU, not Turkey,” Gul told a press conference with his Austrian counterpart Heinz Fisher in Vienna. Gul embarked [...]
Posted in European Union, Government of Turkey, Turkish Press on Dec 1st, 2010
Experts anticipate that European Union-Turkish relations will not be affected when the European External Action Service, or EEAS, established under the auspices of the Treaty of Lisbon, came into effect on Wednesday. Seyfi Taşan, director of the Foreign Policy Institute in Ankara, said the EU’s new institutional changes are irrelevant compared to the importance of [...]
Posted in European Union, Government of Turkey, Turkish Press on Jul 13th, 2010
Turkey hosted talks on Tuesday with the European Union’s foreign affairs chief on its troubled bid to join the bloc after claims that the sluggish progress is pushing Ankara away from the West. Catherine Ashton, accompanied by EU enlargement commissioner Stefan Fule, met in Istanbul with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Turkey’s chief negotiator [...]
Posted in European Union, Government of Turkey, Turkish Press on May 28th, 2010
Turkish and European Parliamentarians visited the Yenikapi Immigrant Deportation Center Thursday in Istanbul. Co-Chairperson of the Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Commission Helene Flautre, member of the European Parliament Arlene Mc Carthy, and two MPs from the Peace and Democracy Party, Ufuk Uras and Sabahat Tuncel visited the facility and made inspections. Director of the center, Mehmet [...]
Posted in European Union, Government of Turkey, Turkish Press on Feb 3rd, 2010
Turkey should not take a recent report prepared by the European Parliament seriously, Turkish state minister and chief negotiator for European Union talks said Wednesday. Egemen Bağış hosted a breakfast with representatives of media organizations in Brussels and strongly reacted to the European Parliament’s draft resolution that called on Turkey to withdraw its soldiers from [...]
Posted in European Union, Government of Turkey, Turkish Press on Jul 31st, 2009
Exactly 50 years ago, on July 31, 1959, former Prime Minister Adnan Menderes did not know what kind of adventure(1) Turkey was about to enter when he stood in front of a small group of journalists and made an announcement that they did not quite understand. Menderes announced that Turkey had taken its first step [...]
Posted in Government of Turkey, Political Resources on Mar 11th, 2009
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan today reaffirmed the strong bonds of alliance, solidarity and strategic partnership between the Republic of Turkey and the United States, as well as the commitment of both countries to the principles of peace, democracy, freedom, and prosperity enshrined in the Shared Vision and Structured Dialogue [...]
Posted in European Union, Government of Turkey, Turkish Press on Feb 12th, 2009
Turkey will be ready to join the European Union by 2013, the country’s foreign minister said on Thursday. “We have a full determination to join the EU. By the year 2013, Turkey will say it is ready, but we don’t know if the EU will be ready for it,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan told [...]