Chirac moots options on Turkey’s EU bid

Following a meeting with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder Thursday, President Jacques Chirac said that accession talks could be broken off if Ankara failed to meet the membership criteria.
However, Chirac was at pains to stress that a sidelining of Turkey’s European aspirations should not lead to a total rupture of relations.
“Then we will have to ensure that this does not lead to a separation between Turkey and Europe and we must find a sufficiently strong link between these two big cultural, political and economic groupings,” he said.
Speaking at a joint press conference after their meeting, Schroeder said that both France and Germany supported Turkey’s bid to join the EU, and that he did not back calls from the German opposition to offer Ankara a lesser status, that of a privileged partnership.
“Our goal is membership,” Schroeder said, adding that it could be up to 15 years before Turkey’s accession process was completed.