Angry Muslim reaction to the Pope's recent remarks on Islam has seen some centre-right MEPs make a last-minute attempt to insert a paragraph condemning the Muslim outcry into a major report on Turkey's EU accession progress while Kretschmer declares that (Turkish) Military does not respect legal order. Mehmet Ali Birand says Justice Minister Cicek might be right in his insistence that "we be patient, arguing, ‘The judiciary will fine-tune itself.’ Afterwards, Elif Şafak was found not guilty. Now the Supreme Court of Appeals will have its say. If it goes along with the decision, we will have passed a critical threshold. Çiçek will have been proven as right. The only thing I'm worried about is the trials of the not-so-famous people. "
Effort to join EU loses inertia says Andrew Borowiec and Turkish government withdrew a controversial proposal that the opposition said would breach the terms of the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, one of the founding documents of the Turkish Republic, and open the way for reopening of a Greek Orthodox seminary near Istanbul. In some other times, I suppose this bill would go unnoticed. Finally, EP's Turkey report stays on EU agenda. That means there will be more stress next week for Turkey....
In other news, National justice veto survives EU Tampere meeting and Polish government survives major wobble.
I have to rush back to the orientation programme for newly matriculated students now!
Posted by erkan at September 23, 2006 11:20 AM | TrackBack