{"id":15103,"date":"2009-10-05T19:53:01","date_gmt":"2009-10-05T17:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=15103"},"modified":"2023-04-08T13:57:57","modified_gmt":"2023-04-08T10:57:57","slug":"turkey-rides-on-irish-yes-to-promote-eu-entry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2009\/10\/05\/turkey-rides-on-irish-yes-to-promote-eu-entry\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey rides on Irish &#8216;yes&#8217; to promote EU entry"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Published: Monday 5 October 2009\u00a0 \u00a0<\/div>\n<p>Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey&#8217;s foreign minister, said an Irish &#8216;yes&#8217; to the Lisbon Treaty would create the legal conditions for future EU enlargements and pleaded passionately for his country&#8217;s accession to the Union.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey can help Europe to become a major player on the international stage if Turkey is admitted to the club, Davutoglu said. He further insisted that his country was not making these efforts &#8220;for PR&#8221; reasons, but to help the EU.<\/p>\n<p>Davutoglu, a professor and political scientist, was speaking in Brussels on Friday (2 October), as Irish voters were being\u00a0called to the ballot box for a second time to decide on the Lisbon Treaty.<\/p>\n<p>There, he met with European Commission President Jos\u00e9 Manuel Barroso, Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, and\u00a0Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt in his capacity\u00a0as representative of the rotating EU presidency.<\/p>\n<p>The Turkish diplomat said his country\u00a0was a key regional player and was already playing the role of &#8220;honest broker&#8221; in a number of conflicts\u00a0in which\u00a0EU countries have little leverage.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Davutoglu gave many examples of Turkey&#8217;s mediator role in conflicts in the Middle East, the Caucasus or during ongoing tensions over Iran&#8217;s nuclear programme. He said his country was pursuing a policy of &#8220;zero problems&#8221; with its neighbours, with all of whom he said relations were &#8220;very good&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Asked by journalists\u00a0about his country&#8217;s relations with Greece, where a number of bilateral problems persist (<span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.euractiv.com\/en\/enlargement\/nato-chief-urges-turkey-greece-scuffle\/article-184925\">EurActiv 28\/08\/09<\/span>,\u00a0<span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.euractiv.com\/en\/enlargement\/eu-turkey-immigration-risk-greek-democracy\/article-183735\">EurActiv 03\/07\/09<\/span>), Davutoglu explained that there were &#8220;of course difficulties&#8221;. But he said there was a big difference compared to the situation 10-15 years ago, because problems were now being\u00a0dealt with constructively &#8220;without escalating tensions&#8221;. He even called Turkish-Greek relations &#8220;excellent&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>On Cyprus, Davutoglu accused the Greek Cypriot side of not being constructive in ongoing reunification talks held under UN patronage (<span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.euractiv.com\/en\/enlargement\/cyprus-negotiators-run-time-think-tank-warns\/article-185895\">EurActiv 30\/09\/09<\/span>). Among other things, he blamed the president of Cyprus, Dimitris Christofias, for having declined a meeting in New York in trilateral format, with Turkish Cypriot negotiator Mehmet Ali Talat and a Turkish delegation. He said that for the Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots were &#8220;semi-human beings,&#8221; while Greek Cypriots were &#8220;super human beings&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.euractiv.com\/en\/enlargement\/turkey-rides-irish-promote-eu-entry\/article-186059\"><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Published: Monday 5 October 2009\u00a0 \u00a0 Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey&#8217;s foreign minister, said an Irish &#8216;yes&#8217; to the Lisbon Treaty would create the legal conditions for future EU enlargements and pleaded passionately for his country&#8217;s accession to the Union. Turkey can help Europe to become a major player on the international stage if Turkey is admitted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":33028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[211,21,835],"tags":[7925],"class_list":["post-15103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cyprus-trnc","category-eu-members","category-europe","tag-turkey-eu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}