TURKEY MAY FAIL TO START TALKS WITH EU

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul on Thursday raised the possibility of his country failing to start membership talks with the European Union on time, but said there was still time to reach a compromise on "serious problems" in a blocked key document. "Undoubtedly, there is the risk of not starting membership talks" as the EU has still not reached an agreement on the accession terms for Turkey ahead of the scheduled start of the talks on October 3 in Luxembourg, Gul told reporters. "But on the other hand there are intense efforts to reach a solution," he said. "There is still time to resolve the problems and I hope they will be resolved." Earlier in the day, the EU called an emergency meeting of ministers on Sunday to try to end an impasse over a negotiating framework -- the guiding procedures and principles of the talks -- with Austria insisting on a reference to an eventual "partnership" instead of full membership for Turkey. Ankara has repeatedly asserted that it would not accept any option that falls short of full membership. "We are facing serious problems regarding the start of the negotiations," Gul said, but declined to elaborate on the grounds that public discussion of the sticking points might disrupt the diplomatic efforts. The minister asserted that he would not go to Luxembourg for the talks if Ankara was not satisfied with the text of the document that the EU would offer. "Of course, no one expects us to go to Luxembourg without seeing the negotiating framework document. Everybody knows that," he said. "There are issues that Turkey can never accept and both the (EU's British) presidency and the member states know them very well," he said, TurkishPress reports.