Italian FM: "Turkey joining the EU will break down walls between west and Muslim world"

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini yesterday said that he disapproves of "privileged partnership" proposals to Turkey in lieu of full European Union membership. "I don't share the idea of 'privileged partnership' or any other offer less than full membership," Frattini told economy magazine Dossier Lazio, stressing the symbolic impact that Turkey's EU admission could have on relations between the West and the Muslim world. "Turkey's eventual full EU membership could have a symbolic power equal to that of the fall of the Berlin Wall in terms of relations between the West and the Muslim world," he said.