Turkish leader Mr Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the European Union today of applying double standards for having failed to give his country a date to open negotiations on EU membership.
But Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said the rules were the same for all candidates and that Turkey must show it is implementing its reforms before getting a date for entry talks.
Mr Erdogan and Mr Rasmussen were speaking in Copenhagen just days before an EU summit in the Danish capital that Turkey insists should set a clear date for talks on it becoming a member.
Mr Erdogan, whose Justice and Development Party (AKP) swept to power in elections last month, has pledged a swathe of democracy and human rights reforms to meet EU criteria and toured European capitals seeking support.
"The fact that Turkey has not got a negotiation date is a double standard itself," he said.
"We see six countries that have not met all of the political criteria but which have negotiation dates. The EU must abandon this double standard that is poisoning it," he said.
Mr Erdogan listed the unclear status of ethnic Russians in the Baltic state of Latvia and the plight of the Roma, or gypsies, from several Central and Eastern European EU candidate countries as examples of violations of the criteria the EU is demanding that Turkey must live up to before it can get a date.
Mr Erdogan was banned from running for parliament in the elections because he had been convicted for inciting religious hatred. As a result he is not the prime minister of Turkey but efforts are under way to change the constitution to allow him to take office.
The EU is widely expected to complete accession negotiations with 10 mainly Central and Eastern European candidates at the December Copenhagen summit.
The Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia would then become members of the currently 15-member EU on May 1st, 2004.