Babacan: "The EU can't ignore what's happening in a candidate country"

Relations between Turkey and Britain are excellent, Foreign Minister and chief negotiator for Turkey's European Union talks Ali Babacan yesterday told reporters at Turkey's Embassy in London. Saying that the closure case against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had been discussed during his talks with his British counterpart David Miliband, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the recent NATO summit, Babacan said that the EU cannot be oblivious to developments in a candidate country. "They make efforts to understand what's going on in Turkey," he explained. "We have to take steps carefully. These developments are very important for us in terms of Turkish-EU relations." In related news, in an interview with Britain's Financial Times published yesterday, Babacan said the government will propose a constitutional package to fix certain urgent issues such as procedures for closing political parties. "If we do it, we have to do it before the Constitutional Court makes its decisions, so that the Constitutional Court will have a new legal base to make judgments on," he added.