Turkey must do more to push through political reforms ahead of its planned membership talks with the European Union later this year, EU foreign ministers agreed today ahead of talks with their Turkish counterpart.
The ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, expressed concern about the lack of progress on religious freedom and minority rights, and called on the Ankara government to ensure full civilian control of Turkey's powerful military.
They also called for an early signing of an agreement extending Turkey's customs union with the EU to all new member states, saying it would be "an important step towards normalisation of the relations between Turkey and all EU member states, including the Republic of Cyprus".
EU leaders agreed last December to open talks with Turkey on October 3, but also set firm conditions for starting negotiations, saying Turkey had to see through reforms to ensure it met the bloc's standards on democracy, rule of law and civil liberties.
"It is a very clear message that Turkey has to move on many fronts and on many issues," Cypriot Foreign Minister George Iacovou told Reuters.
"A lot of the laws that have been enacted are an empty letter for the time being, because they have not been put into effect, this is in particular in respect for human rights, the rights of minorities and so on," he said.
EU and Turkish ministers hold regular talks on Tuesday to discuss Ankara's progress towards membership of the 25-nation bloc.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said he and his Dutch colleague had also requested that EU president Luxembourg urge Ankara to "reassess its past concerning the Armenian genocide".
Armenia wants Turkey to admit that the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians 90 years ago in Ottoman Turkey was genocide. Turkey denies this, saying the numbers were smaller and Armenians were among many victims of a partisan war that also claimed many Muslim Turkish lives.
Turkey's planned EU entry talks has moved the dispute up the political agenda. France, home to an influential, 400,000-strong Armenian community, has promised to seek a Turkish admission of genocide, although Barnier said this would arise at some point in a long negotiating process, not as a prior condition.