British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said yesterday that crisis talks between EU foreign ministers over how to bring Turkey into the union were in trouble and that entry negotiations with Ankara might not start as planned later in the day.
"Negotiations are hard and difficult," Straw told reporters.
He said it was "by no means certain" that Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, with whom he spoke by telephone, would come to Luxembourg to open the membership talks that were due to start at 5pm.
Straw's comments were the first clear indication that Turkey's entry talks were in serious danger.
A failure to start the negotiations yesterday would be seen as a serious blow to the credibility of the EU, which made Turkey an associate member in 1963 with the prospect of future membership.
Austria is resisting the bid by Turkey, a predominantly Muslim nation, to join the EU and is demanding the EU grant Ankara something short of full membership in case Turkey cannot meet all membership obligations. Opening membership talks requires the unanimous approval of all 25 EU governments.
And with the talks already on the ropes, EU member Cyprus -- which Turkey refuses to recognize -- complicated matters further.
Officials said Cyprus demanded stronger language in the negotiating mandate to ensure Turkey does not use international organizations to hinder Cyprus. In the past, Ankara has vetoed EU-NATO military excercises involving Cyprus where Turkey props up a renegade Turkish Cypriot state no other country recognizes.
Turkey belongs to NATO, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe.
But its shaky human rights and poor economic past have kept it from joining the EU as a full member.
In recent years, Turkey has implemented key political and economic reforms, and now wants the EU to make good on its promise to bring it into the bloc.
"We are at a difficult stage in these negotiations," Straw told reporters. "I cannot say what the outcome will be ... It is about trying to accommodate some very serious difficulties some member states and Turkey have about these negotiations."
Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik stood behind him but made no comments.
Vienna's insistence on offering something less than full membership would add a crucial condition to the "negotiating framework" the EU leaders agreed on in December, and which unambiguously proclaims that "the shared objective of the negotiations is [Turkey's] accession" to the EU.
Failure to start negotiations would be a devastating blow to the EU's already damaged prestige. This year, the bloc saw its proposed constitution collapse when Dutch and French voters rejected it, while a nasty spat between France and Britain over EU funding in June left it without a budget for the 2007-2013 period.
On Sunday, the 24 other EU foreign ministers spent eight hours trying to sway Plassnik to endorse a negotiating mandate for Turkey.
As the hours ticked away to what was hoped to be the formal start of entry talks, some said Europe's credibility lay in the balance.
"We have a great responsibility" to Ankara, which was given a prospect of EU membership more than four decades ago, said Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn. "An agreement among the EU foreign ministers would be important for the credibility of Europe."
Ankara, which was angered by Austria's intransigence, had threatened to boycott yesterday's opening ceremony.
"We are not striving to begin negotiations no matter what, at any cost," Gul said in an interview published on Sunday in Turkey's Yeni Safak newspaper.
"If the problems aren't solved, then the negotiations won't begin," he added.
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