ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's EU Minister and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis stated Tuesday that recently published progress report on Turkey, has approved Turkey's reform decisiveness and appreciated Turkey's positive steps.
Speaking in the farewell dinner hosted for the head of the EU Delegation to Turkey Jean Maurice Ripert in Ankara, Bagis said reports were "taking photographs of countries" and added they must include negative sides as well as the positive ones.
Bagis said however it was the first in European Union's (EU) history to open a chapter for a candidate country indexed to a progress report, they welcomed the softening of decisions of some EU countries over opening the 22nd chapter for Turkey.
"We welcomed the report's covering Turkey's democratization package, announced by our prime minister on September 30 to a great extent, in regards for Turkey's steps taken during the solution progress and its determination for it," Bagis said.
The minister expressed his hopes to have a new beginning on November 5, when he would visit Brussels along with Turkey's Development Minister Cevdet Yilmaz to open the chapter 22 on regional policies.
"We hope that opening of chapter 22 and 23 will also come very soon," Bagis said and added those were necessary to open following chapters in the Council of Europe.
Having thanked Ripert for his contributions for Turkey's progress report, Bagis stressed the progress report was "the most objective of last years" and stated that if report "was objective, the reaction would also be objective."
Ripert noted that since he came to Turkey, he was in the same convinction that "Turkey should join EU," adding he was still convinced that together they were stronger.
"Perhaps to chance to built on the report would be more important because we acknowledge all the progresses. Incredible progresses that were made by this country in a year. And also let be honest we are frank and sharp on some critisims. At least we talk about it, exchange about it and we intent to build on it. The opening of chapter 22 is a very good news, we hope there will be more," Ripert stated.
The EU had initially planned to open Chapter 22 in Turkey’s accession talks in June. But due to the disagreements between Brussels and Ankara in the aftermath of the Gezi Park protests and due to the opposition by Berlin, the final decision had been delayed to October.
EU foreign ministers reached a political agreement on June 25 to open Chapter 22 but said that they would determine the date for the Inter-Governmental Conference on opening the chapter on October 22, after the presentation of the European Commission's progress report on Turkey and following a review of the political situation.
As a candidate country, Turkey has to successfully conclude negotiations in 35 policy chapters, which foresee reforms and adoption of European standards, in various policy areas for its EU membership. Since 2005, Turkey has started negotiations on 13 chapters. No new chapters have been opened in the past three years, mainly due to the Cyprus issue and the blockage by former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who opposed Turkey's EU membership.
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