Prodi onderhandelt in Turkije over kandidaat-lidmaatschap (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Commission President Romano Prodi will visit Turkey on Thursday with an agenda that is dominated by the country's EU membership prospects and the divided island of Cyprus.

During his two-day visit in Ankara and Istanbul, Mr Prodi - the first EU Commission president to visit Turkey in four decades - is expected to praise Turkey for the progress made in meeting the EU accession criteria.

But he will also call for the continuation and implementation of these reforms.

Turkey is hoping to get a date at the end of this year to start accession negotiations with the EU.

But it still needs to do more to implement its human rights reforms as well as laws guaranteeing freedom of expression, religious liberty and the independence of the judiciary.

Its reform process in the next months will be crucial.

In October, the Commission will issue a report reviewing Turkey's membership performance. Based on this, EU leaders will decide in December whether to start membership negotiations with Ankara.

Cyprus

A decision on that issue will at that point have to be taken with 25 member states - Cyprus being among them.

The divided Mediterranean island poses a huge problem to Turkey's EU membership prospects.

Although the Commission publicly insists that having a reunited island is not a prerequisite for Turkish EU membership, it would nevertheless be extremely difficult, politically, to have a militarily occupied territory within the European Union.

However, the Turkish Daily News reports Romano Prodi as saying the chances were not strong for a settlement to be reached before the island joins the EU in May.

Turkey's place in the EU club

During his visit, Romano Prodi is expected to "repeat the strong wish of the European Union to welcome Turkey as an equal and respected member".

However, the prospect of having Turkey in the EU does not go down well in some political circles.

The biggest political group in the European Parliament, the European People's Party feels the EU should have a special partnership with Turkey instead of membership.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the man who chaired the Convention, also openly aired his views, declaring that Turkey is not a European country and so its place is not in the EU.

The debate over Turkey's EU membership has also touched on the issue of religion, as Turkey is a Muslim country.

Yet, Mr Prodi does not see the religious issue as an obstacle, but rather Turkey's size - which would affect voting in the council of ministers.

In an interview with CNN Turk television, Mr Prodi said: "Some have claimed that Turkey will not be taken into the EU because it is not a Christian country. That is not true. The problem with Turkey is that it is very big".

"If a country is big, the problems are also big," he added, quoted by the Turkish Daily News.

Turkey has a population of around 70 million - larger than the populations of each of the current and acceding EU states except Germany.