Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan leaves a meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party in Ankara, yesterday - REUTERS
LUXEMBOURG (AP):
EUROPEAN UNION (EU) nations reached a tentative agreement yesterday to open full membership talks with Turkey, diplomats said. But a spokesman for Turkey's Prime Minister said Ankara had not yet approved the document.
Turkey's four-decade-long EU bid was thrown into doubt in recent days after Austria refused to back down on its insistence that Turkey be offered the possibility of a lesser partnership. Ankara refused to discuss any option other than talks leading to full membership.
Diplomats in Luxembourg said yesterday afternoon that EU Foreign Ministers had reached a compromise, but no details were released of the document.
Turkey had said it would not send its delegation to Luxembourg for yesterday's planned ceremony to start official entry negotiations - which had been agreed by all 25 EU nations last December - unless it approved the EU Foreign Ministers' document.
APPROVAL
In Turkey, CNN-Turk and NTV television reported that Ankara had approved the EU document and that Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul was preparing to depart for Luxembourg.
But Akif Beki, spokesman for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, denied reports that Turkey had given its approval.
"Talks are continuing. There is no agreement yet," he said.
Earlier, a spokesman for the British presidency of the EU said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Gul had been in telephone contact and cautioned that no agreement had been reached.
