Greece supports EU entry for Turkey

Saariselka - Greece said yesterday it supported granting Turkey the status of a candidate for European Union membership at a …

Saariselka - Greece said yesterday it supported granting Turkey the status of a candidate for European Union membership at a EU summit in December, but stressed this would require serious commitments from Ankara.

Greece's position was delivered by the Foreign Minister, Mr George Papandreou, at the end of a two-day meeting of EU foreign ministers in Finnish Lapland.

Asked at a news conference whether Greece was ready under certain conditions to accept Turkey as an EU candidate at the summit in Helsinki, Mr Papandreou said: "Yes, certainly. We are not . . . in principle against, and we will be working constructively to see if we can make this happen." Greece has been a leading opponent of granting Turkey candidate status but relations between the two neighbours have warmed since Athens offered help after Turkey's earthquake last month.

In a sign of goodwill, Greece abandoned its resistance to some frozen EU loans to Turkey and backed an EU decision yesterday to offer Ankara new reconstruction loans.