Ciller stresses commitment to full membership of EU

ONCE described as the world's most powerful woman, Turkey's former prime minister and currently her country's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Ms Tansu Ciller, faces a special convention of her True Path (DYP) party this weekend with confidence despite further defections from her group in parliament.

"We will come up with solidarity and renewal from that convention and I for one, after three years, will definitely become a stronger president of that party", she told The Irish Times.

Ms Ciller, who met the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, in Dublin earlier this week to stress Turkey's commitment to eventual full EU membership, has experienced difficulty in holding her largely secularist party in a coalition with the Islamic Welfare Party under the country's new Prime Minister, Mr Necmettin Erbakan.

Bluntly describing Mr Erbakan's Welfare Party as "extremist rightist", Mrs Ciller said, however, she had found her new partners much more reasonable than she had originally anticipated.

She said the programme of the coalition government, initialled by both parties, would not include Mr Erbakan's pre election proposals of an economy influenced by Islam in which interest rates on loans would be abolished.

"There will be no interference with interest rates or exchange rate prices. It is an open economy", Ms Ciller said.

She added that Turkey had a stable, majority coalition government which would be strengthened after her party's convention.

She was confident further measures of "democratisation and liberalisation" would get through parliament in Ankara.

In her meeting with Mr Bruton, Ms Ciller pledged support for the peace process in Northern Ireland, praising Mr Bruton who was "acknowledged for his constructive work" in this area.

She also appealed for the full lifting of a Greek veto on EU funds for Turkey following a dispute over the possession of islands in the Aegean.

"Turkey has become a full member of the Customs Union without getting any support of any kind even as far as the agreements that have already been signed have been suspended by the Greek veto, and of course the crisis [over possession of the island] is not something that Turkey is responsible for", she said.

"We had no information of any kind until the fait accompli by Greece was actually taking place in front of the eyes of the Turkish people 3.8 miles from the shores of Turkey for no reason whatsoever", she said.

But Turkey's association with the EU would be a bridge for peace, she added.

"The bringing together of different cultures, that is what we represent and what the European ideal is all about", Ms Ciller said.

A solution to the problem of Cyprus could be found in the context of the EU, she said, and she would welcome a meeting with Greece's Foreign Minister, Mr Theodoros Pangalos, on bilateral issues.

Ms Ciller blamed Syria, Iran and Iraq for the violence in eastern Turkey involving Kurdish separatists.

"We feel that Syria is supporting terrorism and has provided a cover up for the head of the terrorist group in Turkey and the situation in Iraq has left a sort of a no man's land in northern Iraq that has sustained terrorism and again we have had some problems with Iran recently on our borders", she said.

"We need an end to the situation that exists among our neighbours so that they don't sustain and support terrorism of any kind. We don't want terrorism of any kind", she added.

Asked if Turkey would accept the ruling of the European Court of Human rights which is due later this year, to hear a plea from six Kurdish parliamentarians who have been sentenced to long prison sentences, Ms Ciller said: "We have signed the agreement and whatever we have signed we will abide by. No doubt about that."

On the renewed fighting in Chechnya, Ms Ciller recognised that the region is part of the Russian Federation.

However, she said: "Nevertheless, there is a lot of aggression taking place and violence taking place in Chechnya and we hope that it will be stopped and dialogue will start and a peaceful solution will come about."