Turkey signalled its growing impatience with the EU on Thursday night by warning that its ministers would not turn up in Luxembourg for membership talks until they are sent a copy of the ground rules.
Irritated by the EU's failure to reach agreement on a framework for the talks, Turkey's foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, declared he would remain in Turkey until he is sent a copy.
"Everyone knows there's no point in going to Luxembourg without seeing this document," Gul said, warning that the talks may fail to begin as planned on Monday.
Gul spoke out after Austria blocked an agreement on the ground rules for Turkey's membership talks in a last-ditch attempt to downgrade it to associate EU membership. At a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels, Austria demanded the talks should include -- from the outset -- "alternatives" to full EU membership.
This forced Britain, which is chairing the talks, to convene an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg tomorrow night. Britain, which is Turkey's leading champion in the EU, will be placed in the embarrassing position of telling Gul tomorrow night not to board his plane until the EU sorts out its differences.
"You can't ask the Turks to turn up and then tell them to hang round in the waiting room while Europe sorts out its differences," one EU diplomat said.
Turkey's irritation had been mounting all day. Earlier the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, called on European leaders to prove they are not running an exclusively "Christian club."
"If the EU is not a Christian club, this has to be proven," Erdogan said during a visit to the Gulf.
There is speculation that Austria will cave in at the last minute. It may give ground if the EU is able to make encouraging noises about Croatia's EU membership talks. These were suspended in March after the EU concluded that the country was failing to cooperate properly with the international war crimes tribunal in its attempts to put on trial a convicted war criminal, Ante Gotovina.
Carla del Ponte, the tribunal's chief prosecutor, was to visit Zagreb yesterday to assess whether Croatia is cooperating. Del Ponte will then report to a special taskforce of EU foreign ministers on Monday. The taskforce will then interview Croatian ministers.
Austria says there is no link between Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, and Austria's near neighbor, Croatia.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
RSS