By Xinhua
Munich : Turkey would not accept anything short of a full European Union (EU) membership and should be a part of the decision-making mechanism of the 27-member bloc, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday.
“Our objective is a full membership with equal rights,” Erdogan told a group of diplomats at a security conference that opened Friday in the southern German city of Munich.
Turkey is “determined” to continue to make efforts to meet the EU accession standards, he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy opposed full Turkish membership and instead have offered Turkey a “privileged partnership,” which has been bluntly rejected by Ankara.
“We don’t find it credible… Turkey is not going to consider other options,” said Erdogan.
Merkel said Friday in Berlin after meeting Erdogan that Turkey still has a long way to go before joining the 27-member bloc.
The EU has frozen the access negotiations with Turkey in 2006 in response to Turkey’s refusal to grant trade privileges to Cyprus, which Ankara does not recognize.
The annual three-day security meeting, attended by diplomats including NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana is scheduled to discuss a range of world issues.