"Are We Ready For 2006?
BYEGM: 12/7/2004
BY ZEYNEP GURCANLI
STAR- The European Union is to decide on Dec. 17 whether to open Turkey's membership talks. We were hoping that our talks could begin in the first half of 2005. However, now Brussels is pressing for the implementation of certain legislative reforms, including an overhaul of our penal code. Therefore, we should steel ourselves for a disappointment. At the last meeting of the EU Troika and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul in The Hague, EU Term President the Netherlands' Foreign Minister Bernard Bot stated that Turkey would first have to pass "six currently suspended law"� in order to fulfill the Copenhagen criteria, the key to starting our membership negotiations. "
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