ANKARA, Oct 2: Tens of thousands of Turkish nationalists, chanting slogans and waving flags, took to the streets of Ankara on Sunday to protest against the country’s possible entry into the European Union, just hours ahead of landmark accession talks, reported the Anatolia news agency.
Protestors brandished banners emblazoned with anti-EU slogans including, “We don’t believe in the EU” or “No to the EU, no to the United States, a fully independant and nationalist Turkey”, Anatolia reported.
Organised by the ultra-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP), more than 700 coaches bused protestors in to the Turkish capital from across the nation while some 6,000 police officers were mobilised for the event.
MHP leader, Devlet Bahceli, urged Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to stay away from Luxembourg on Monday, where talks with EU leaders on the nation’s possible entry into the bloc are scheduled to take place.
“Prime Minister, the compromises you’ve already made (with the EU) have plunged the nation into darkness. Don’t make more compromises or give in to more demands,” Bahceli told the crowd. “Don’t go and don’t add insult to injury,” he said.
October 3, he predicted, would mark the beginning of a “process of lies” which fail to gain full EU membership for Turkey.
“It’s apparent the EU does not want to give Turkey full membership. Europe’s goal is keep Turkey on the outside, debased and humilated,” he added.
UK’s plea to austria: British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a last-ditch appeal to the Austrian leader to end Vienna’s obstruction of the start of European Union membership negotiations with Turkey, diplomats said.
Blair, who holds the EU’s revolving presidency, telephoned Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel just before EU foreign ministers met in emergency session in Luxembourg to try to remove the final obstacle to launching the talks on Monday, they said.
A spokeswoman for Blair’s office would only say Blair had spoken to “all relevant leaders in recent days”.
Diplomats said Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik had stuck to Austria’s demand that the EU offer Turkey an alternative to full membership when she met British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw privately, before all 25 ministers met.
“The Austrians didn’t budge,” one diplomat said.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, in an interview broadcast shortly before the meeting, also questioned whether Turkey would ever join the EU.
Douste-Blazy, who stayed away from Sunday night’s European Union meeting, told Europe 1 radio Turkey was a long way from having the same values, laws and human rights as the European Union.—AFP/ Reuters
