Babacan to meet today with Azeri, Armenian counterparts

Foreign Minister Ali Babacan is scheduled to meet separately with his counterparts from Azerbaijan and Armenia today in Helsinki during a gathering of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Officials say there is no official decision to have three-way talks similar to the ones held at the UN in September, though observers still expect trilateral talks today. In addition to separate talks with Babacan, Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian are expected to have a bilateral meeting. Representatives from Russia, France and the US of the OSCE's Minsk Group, which works for a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, will also be at the meeting.

The European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday held its first debate on a draft report on Turkey by Ria Oomen-Ruijten, the EP's rapporteur for Turkey. Turkey was represented by Foreign Minister Ali Babacan. Addressing the gathering, Oomen-Ruijten called on Turkey to speed up its reforms for European Union membership and to carry them out with resolve. Hannes Swoboda, vice chair of the EP's second-biggest group, the Socialists, yesterday stated that some countries in the EU are working arbitrarily to stall Turkey's negotiations, adding, "That holds back Turkey's reform process. Unless we have a clear answer on Turkey's EU membership, asking Turkey to do something is hard." MEP Vural Oger, a German-Turkish politician, similarly charged that French President Nicholas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are hurting Turkey's reform process, and that the EU should instead encourage it.