Brussels insisted today Turkish membership of the European Union would not destroy the grouping.
Former French president Mr Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the chairman of the convention on the EU's future, said in a newspaper interview on Friday that Turkish membership would mean "the end of the European Union.
"I don't have any intention of getting into a ping-pong match with Mr Giscard d'Estaing," said a spokesman for the European Commission. "He is of course free to give his own personal opinion," Mr Jean-Christophe Filori told reporters.
But asked whether Turkey's entry into the EU would mean its end, Mr Filori said: "The answer is no." Turkey was not a European country, Giscard d'Estaing told Le Monde, adding that the 15-nation bloc should instead offer Ankara a partnership and co-operation pact.
In Turkey, AKP, a new party which has forsworn its Islamist background for a more centre-right agenda, is set to form a new Turkish government after winning a crushing victory in elections Sunday.
AKP leader Mr Recep Tayyip Erdogan is preparing for a tour of EU countries ahead of a December EU summit in Copenhagen, which Turkey is hoping will give a date for accession talks to start.
The Copenhagen summit will formally invite 10 Eastern European and Mediterranean countries - including the divided island of Cyprus - to join the EU in 2004.
But Turkey, the laggard among 13 EU hopefuls, has so far been given the cold shoulder by Brussels. Mr Filori stressed Turkey remains a candidate to join the EU and hailed recent reforms - such as abolition of the death penalty and rights for Kurds - as proof of progress.
A Turkish government member of Giscard d'Estaing's convention, Mr Emre Kocaoglu, called for the former French president to step down from the job. "His ideas are from the past, not from the 21st century," he said. However, other members of the convention said Giscard d'Estaing had a point.
French parliamentarian Hubert Haenel said Giscard d'Estaing was merely saying in public what many others in the EU thought. "Lots of officials, French as well as others, say in private that Turkey will never join the European Union," he said.
AFP