Turkey has toughened its tone ahead of the EU enlargement summit, rejecting a 2005 date for accession negotiations and hinting at counter-measures if such a late date was adopted.
"It is not possible to accept the 2005 date. We absolutely reject it," Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said in an interview published by
Milliyet
newspaper today. "We insist on a date by the end of 2003."
Turkey, the laggard among 13 EU hopeful states, is pressing EU leaders to set a firm date for the start of membership talks at the Copenhagen summit tomorrow at which 10 countries will receive a formal invitation for membership in 2004.
The EU says Turkey needs more human rights reforms to become eligible for membership negotiations, and has lent support to a suggestion by Germany and France to begin talks with Ankara in July 2005 if the country has made sufficient progress on reform by then.
Mr Gul warned that Ankara could retaliate in such a case.
"We have our own Plan B," he said, but did not elaborate. "We would not like to offend other countries, but we cannot tolerate such a thing. We will not keep on sitting in the waiting room."
The mass-circulation Hurriyetnewspaper suggested French and German firms might be excluded from future military and civilian tenders if Turkey did not get its way in Copenhagen.
Turkey believes that a failure to obtain a firm date from Copenhagen will minimize its chances of joining the EU because it would be more difficult to convince a 25-member Union to agree to Ankara's accession.
The Turkish parliament is scheduled to vote today on a set of EU-oriented reforms including measures to deter torture, grant new rights to detainees and suspects, and ease restrictions on
AFP