Gül: 'Germany and Turkey are Europe’s only healthy countries'

"If they ignore Turkey, Europe will be the one that loses," Gül told journalists accompanying him on his way to Germany, where he is spending a four-day visit from 18 to 21 September. He added: "Germany and Turkey are the only healthy countries of Europe".

Gül also said that Turkey alone had a role in international politics "as important as the whole EU".

In his official statements, the Turkish president sought to reassure Germany, a country increasingly sceptical with regard to Turkey's future as an EU member, by repeating that it was in Europe's interest that his country become anchored to the Union. For this, he insisted that the EU should allow Turkey to complete the accession negotiations, which have reached a dead end because of the Cyprus issue (see 'Background').

Gül advocated a strategy of letting Turkey complete its EU negotiation process before any arguments take place as to whether the country should become a full member of the European Union or not.

"If one of the member states considers Turkey to be a burden on the Union and opposes Turkey's membership when the negotiation process comes to an end, then we will respect that and will not become an EU member," said Gül, speaking alongside his German colleague Christian Wulff.

He then repeated a thesis already developed by Turkish diplomats, that Turkey could also decide not to join the EU after having completed the negotiations, as Norway did following accession referenda lost by narrow margins in 1972 and 1994.

Wulff said Germany wanted to remain Turkey's main trade partner. He added that it was in Germany's interest to have closer relations between Turkey and the EU.

The German president denied that his country was against Turkey's full EU membership. On the contrary, Germany has helped ease some problems during the process and has had a balanced approach, Wulff suggested, without elaborating. He added that the mutual confidence between Turkey and the EU will grow if they cooperate in the Middle East and North Africa.

Turkish Gastarbeiter anniversary

Gül's visit to Germany was scheduled to coincide with the 50th anniversary of an agreement that opened the way for mass immigration of Turkish "guest workers" or Gastarbeiter, who helped meet additional labour demand during Germany's postwar economic boom.

Recalling the presence of 3 million people of Turkish descent in Germany, Gül said that the two countries had always been friends and now his main aim with his German counterpart was how to carry the cooperation between the two countries into the future.

The Turkish President also highlighted Turkey's annoyance with the EU's requirement of visas for Turkish citizens travelling to the EU.

"Turkish businessmen send their goods to expositions, but are not able to go themselves. Scientists get invited to conferences but they are not able to go. Concerts get cancelled," Gül lamented.

"Speaking fluent German doesn't mean not being able to speak your own language," Gül said, quoted by the daily Zaman, in response to a question on integration of the Turkish community. Suggesting that people can speak another language better if they can speak their first language well, Gül championed multilingualism as a means of improving integration.

Bomb threat

A bomb threat by Kurdish protesters delayed a speech by Gül in Berlin yesterday (19 September), when German police evacuated the city's central Humboldt University just as he was due to speak.

Gül eventually gave an abridged version of his speech two hours later, to a limited audience.

"There are people who wanted to delay this event," Gül said, quoted by Reuters.

"We will never submit to terror […] Any organisation that makes a bomb threat is a terror organisation," he added.

Berlin police spokesman Michael Gassen said the threat had been taken seriously, even though the telephoned warning had been difficult to understand.

At the start of his speech, Gül said Roj television, a Kurdish station, had been urging viewers all day to disrupt his visit to the university, on the Unter den Linden avenue.

Opposite the building, some 50 demonstrators chanted and waved banners in support of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) separatist guerrilla group and its jailed leader, Abdullah Öcalan.

Slight scuffles broke out as police struggled to contain a throng of people trying to enter the building to listen to the speech after the alert was called off.

The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 and is listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. More than 40,000 people have died in the separatist insurgency.