The EU's incoming president, Portugese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, said on Saturday he aimed to keep entry negotiations with Turkey on track despite French opposition.
"We must be first and foremost loyal at what we pledged to do," Socrates said on the eve of taking over the EU's presidency from Germany. "The most important thing is that we should be loyal in these negotiations. We should be balanced and moderate."
Socrates, speaking to reporters at his official residence, said all EU leaders should "act in a responsible fashion and respect the credibility of Europe" in respecting the deal the bloc made with Ankara when it opened entry talks with Turkey two years ago.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to halt Turkey's membership bid and has called on the EU to launch a debate to set the bloc's final borders.
Portuguese officials are keen to keep a discussion of the contentious entry bid on the EU's back burner, but Sarkozy has demanded a special "working group" be set up to outline eventual final borders beyond which the bloc will not expand.
Socrates said if that if the EU met Sarkozy's demands it could damage the 27-nation bloc's image across the world, notably in the Islamic world.
He added that Portugal will use its six-month presidency to consider expanding the negotiations further.
France last week used its veto to limit entry talks with Turkey in two minor policy areas.
The two sides agreed to open talks on statistics and financial control, but France prevented the expansion of the negotiations to the more important economic and monetary policy.
Current talks cover only two areas -- science and research and industrial affairs, although EU entry talks normally cover 35 negotiating areas.
Socrates said it was more important for the EU to concentrate on completing a new reform treaty rather than starting a highly divisive debate over Turkey.
Portugal has been tasked with completing and getting all 27 EU leaders to sign a new treaty, finalizing a deal reached by EU leaders last weekend.
The new treaty is meant to streamline how the EU makes decisions.
The EU's entry talks with Turkey have made scant progress. Cyprus, Greece and France have slowed them over misgivings of Ankara's right to join and over its refusal to officially recognize EU member Cyprus.
The EU partially suspended the negotiations last December in protest of Turkey's refusal to open its ports and airports to trade with Cyprus.
Turkey says it will not do so until the EU takes steps to end the international isolation of the Turkish Cypriot northern half of Cyprus.
The southern Greek Cypriot side of the island joined the bloc in 2004. Cyprus has been divided since 1974
The EU, however, has so far failed to get Cyprus to lift its opposition to live up to a three-year-old promise to provide aid and open direct trade links with the Turkish Cypriots.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The