By IANS,
Istanbul : Turkey and the European Union (EU) will engage in a political dialogue in Istanbul Thursday. The meet will be part of Turkey’s accession negotiation for the EU membership.
The high-level meeting’s agenda will include Turkey-EU relations, the positive agenda initiative launched between the two sides last month, visa and latest developments in the Middle East, North Africa and Western Balkans, Xinhua quoted a statement from Turkey’s EU ministry as saying.
The Turkish side will be represented by the country’s EU Minister and chief negotiator Egemen Bagis and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
Catherine Ashton, EU’s high representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and EU Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Fule will be represent the European Union during the meet.
The last Turkey-EU political dialogue meeting was held in Brussels in March.
According to Turkish Weekly journal, Turkey’s membership talks with the EU were launched in 2005. But the negotiations process saw minimal progress due to what Turkey has describes as “political obstacles” over the Cyprus problem as well as opposition from EU countries such as France and Germany to Ankara’s accession.
Seventeen out of 33 policy areas on which Turkey needs to negotiate have been frozen and with 13 of them opened and one closed provisionally so far.