{"id":37191,"date":"2011-07-05T20:53:32","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T17:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=37191"},"modified":"2014-01-06T10:01:29","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T08:01:29","slug":"westerwelle-calls-for-closer-turkey-ties-to-eu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2011\/07\/05\/westerwelle-calls-for-closer-turkey-ties-to-eu\/","title":{"rendered":"Westerwelle calls for closer Turkey ties to EU"},"content":{"rendered":"

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is calling for deeper integration with Turkey, arguing that the country deserves greater support as it makes a bid to join the European Union.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Westerwelle told the daily Die Welt that Turkey is becoming a regional powerhouse and the fact that it\u2019s EU aspirations appear to be at a standstill is shameful to all sides involved.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s location, diversity and European outlook can make it a \u201cbridge to the Islamic world,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to overcome this impasse,\u201d Westerwelle added.<\/p>\n

Berlin’s foreign minister has just returned from a trip to Turkey, where he held extensive talks with his counterpart Ahmet Davuto\u011flu. In the coming days Davuto\u011flu will undertake travels in the Arab world, where Germany has deep interests.<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s long-running EU accession bid has run into strong opposition among many Europeans who see it as not being economically or politically ready.<\/p>\n

Some have argued that those fears are a mask for deep discomfort with Islam in Turkey, although the state there is secular.<\/p>\n

Westerwelle is aware that increasing closeness with Turkey is likely to be controversial in some quarters – including within Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition.<\/p>\n

Whereas Westerwelle’s Free Democrats are more open to Turkey joining the EU, Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats want to offer Ankara a “privileged partnership” below full membership.<\/p>\n

But Westerwelle said a closer ties with the country would be in Europe\u2019s interest.<\/p>\n

He is being joined by prominent business leaders like Dieter Zetsche, who was born in Turkey and is the chairman of German car company Daimler.<\/p>\n

He told the Bild newspaper that Germany and all of Europe needs Turkey.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of building more and new obstacles until one day Turkey turns away, we need to open the door very widely,\u201d Zetsche said.<\/p>\n

The Local\/mdm<\/p>\n

via Westerwelle calls for closer Turkey ties to EU – The Local.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is calling for deeper integration with Turkey, arguing that the country deserves greater support as it makes a bid to join the European Union. Westerwelle told the daily Die Welt that Turkey is becoming a regional powerhouse and the fact that it\u2019s EU aspirations appear to be at a standstill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":37193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[3729],"class_list":["post-37191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eu-members","tag-westerwelle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37191","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=37191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}