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.
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