The Turkish government is deeply divided on which steps should be taken to join the European Union just two weeks before European officials are to lay out a program for accession, Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz said Tuesday.
"Even though everybody agrees that Turkey should join the EU, there are deep differences even between the coalition parties on the steps to be taken in this direction," Yilmaz said in a speech before his parliamentary group, Anatolia news agency reported.
He did not elaborate on which issues the three government parties were divided.
Yilmaz said the Turkish establishment disagreed on whether a 15-year Kurdish rebellion for self-rule in Turkey's southeast continued to be an obstacle for democratic reforms despite its recent decline.
"In the past decade, Turkey has taken extraordinary measures against this threat. At the stage we have come today, there is not a common view on whether this threat is still really a threat," said Yilmaz, the head of the center-right Motherland Party (ANAP).
Turkey has come under increasing pressure from the EU to grant its Kurds cultural autonomy since September 1999 when the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) said it was laying down its arms and pulling out from Turkey to seek a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish conflict.
Turkey's powerful army has played down the PKK's peace bid as a "ploy" and continues to fight the rebels.
"Some circles say reforms on this issue could pose a great risk, while others maintain that the military success (against the PKK) should be backed with democratic openings, and I am among them," Yilmaz said.
Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said in July that time was not "ripe" to discuss Kurdish rights with the EU, reflecting a popular view among the Turkish establishment that such moves could encourage separatist-minded Kurds and endanger the country's unity.
The European Commission will announce on November 8 a so-called accession partnership program for Turkey, which will outline the reforms Ankara must carry out to catch up with EU standards before becoming a full member.
The need to abolish the death penalty, a major EU criteria, is another contention point dividing the Ankara government.
The far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is severely opposed to banning capital punishment on the grounds that it will save condemned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, while Ecevit's center-left Democratic Left party (DSP) and ANAP are in favor of the reform – ANKARA (AFP)
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