BRUSSELS, Belgium — EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele said on Tuesday (April 19th) that accession talks with Turkey may restart in June after a year-long hiatus. His statement followed a meeting of the EU-Turkey Association Council in Brussels. “If Turkey takes the few remaining steps in time, the competition chapter can hopefully still be opened,” Fuele said, adding that giving new momentum to the negotiations is in everyone’s interest. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said “nobody can blame Turkey” for the deadlock and called for “strategic political will by all member countries of the EU”. Turkey has opened talks on 13 of 35 negotiating chapters, but has only closed one.
In other news Tuesday, Reporters without Borders expressed serious concern about press freedom in Turkey. “We do not even have an exact number of journalists who are being kept in prison under arrest,” Jean Francois Juillard, the organisation’s secretary-general, said after its representatives spent six days in Istanbul researching the issue. “Violence against journalists has increased. Journalists are being assassinated,” he added. (Hurriyet, Cumhurriyet, Bianet, NTV, Sabah, Zaman – 19/04/11)
via EU’s Fuele: accession talks with Turkey may resume in June (SETimes.com).
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