|
In his letter titled “Turkey, the EU and the USA”, Carmelo Micallef undermines the credibility of his statements when he asserts that Turkey’s membership of NATO does not give it any credentials to join the European Union.
In fact, Turkey is already a member of almost all of Europe’s political, military, cultural and social organisations including the Council of Europe and the OSCE, and was deemed to be eligible for eventual European Union membership as early as 1963 when it signed its Accession Treaty with the EU.
The recent report by the European Commission declaring that Turkey satisfies the political criteria for membership means that it now has an excellent chance to start membership negotiations in 2005.
But Mr Micallef undermines the logic of his arguments against Turkish membership of the European Union even further when he says that Turkey should not join the club simply because it's population is Muslim.
Surely he recognises that disqualifying Turkey on religious grounds would constitute a case of racist discrimination plain and simple.
Suhail Shafi
Jeffersonville, PA
19403 USA
|
