Edmund Stoiber can't be happy
The Bavarian premier is on DW TV regularly explaining how Turks aren't like Europeans. The Guardian:
EU foreign ministers today reached a deal clearing the way for accession talks with Turkey to begin, EU officials said.
Austria was forced to back down on all its key demands after hours of intense talks chaired by the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, officials said. This afternoon the deal was sent to Ankara for final approval.
posted by the spook @ 11:10 AM
1 Comments:
At 4:10 PM,
AR1836 said…
If the Greeks don't mind EU membership for Turkey, that should be enough endorsement, except the fear of an avenue for more Islamic faithful locating to Western Europe. I can understand the trepidation, but a stable Turkey is essential to the future political, petroleum and natural gas needs. All the pipeline issues to avoid Iran or the embattled S. Caucuses lead thru Afghanistan or Turkey. Afghanistan and Turkmenistan have a lot of natural gas to exploit. When will the TAP pipeline be built now that Afghanistan and Pakistan are so "stable"? More stable than Iraq and any planned use of their oil reserves to pay for "reconstruction". I haven't heard much more in the news about the pipeline to Turkey from the Caspian region lately, negotiated during the Clinton Administration. Dagestan and Chechnya are still rather dangerous despite Russian intervention. What a quandary post Cold War Asia has become. The pipeline agreement actually sparked another clash between Kurds and Turkey and an independent Kurdistan scares the hell out of the Turks. Maybe EU membership will place them on better behavior in their sometimes savage response to Kurdish insurgency. A more enlightnened policy is required, particularly in dealing with Iran and their nuclear ambitions. Yikes!
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