Catégorie : Turquie

Fuite de Wikileaks sur la position française hostile à l’entrée de la Turquie dans l’UE

Le télégramme (« cable » en anglais) ci-dessous a été envoyé par l’ambassade des Etats-Unis en France à Paris le 16 septembre 2009.

Télégramme intégral (l’extrait ci-dessous est exhaustif sur les discussions franco-américaines sur la Turquie mais la visite du Secrétaire d’Etat assistant Philip Gordon à Paris en septembre 2009 a été l’occasion d’aborder d’autres sujets) :
http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/09/09PARIS1254.html

¶1. (S) Summary [Résumé]. During Assistant Secretary Philip Gordon‘s visit to Paris on September 11, he met with a number of French policy-makers including: Elysee Diplomatic Advisors Jean-David Levitte, Damien Loras, and Francois Richier, Assistant Secretary equivalent for Continental Europe Roland Galharague, and Acting Director of MFA [Ministère français des Affaires Etrangères] Strategic Affairs bureau Jean-Hugues Simon-Michel. Discussions focused on Russia, upcoming developments in the Balkans (Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Kosovo), elections in Germany and Afghanistan, Turkey’s EU Accession, NATO Enlargement and Strategic Concept, and Georgia and Ukraine. End Summary.

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CONCERNS ABOUT TURKEY
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¶6. (C) Jean-David Levitte informed Assistant Secretary Philip Gordon that there had been no change in the French position advocating a « privileged partnership » between the European Union and Turkey, in lieu of EU membership. However, he emphasized that France was not preventing accession negotiations from progressing on all the EU chapters that do not pre-suppose membership. There remain plenty of chapters of the acquis to open, so if progress is not being made, the fault lies with Turkish intransigence on Cyprus. Unfortunately, Ankara is not completing the required necessary reforms and progress has stalled. Levitte anticipated a negative report this fall on Turkey’s failure to fulfill the Ankara Protocol. Assistant Secretary Philip Gordon said that Turkey was caught in a vicious cycle and it is not completing necessary reforms because the Turks do not believe that their EU candidacy will be allowed to progress, and at the same time, their negotiations are not progressing because they aren’t completing the required reforms. He noted that in the latest German Marshall Fund polls in Turkey, fewer that 30% of the Turkish public believes they will succeed in getting EU membership.

¶7. (C) Jean-David Levitte agreed, but noted that Paris hopes that it will be the Turks themselves who realize that their role is best played as a bridge between the two worlds of Europe and Asia, rather than anchored in Europe itself. He stated that Turkey is in a difficult position as it wants to enter the EU but has refused to accept one of the other EU member states.
Levitte predicted that a worse case scenario would be if Turkey finally manages to complete the acquis and end negotiations and a public referendum is held in France which is finally opposed to their membership. Despite all of these problems, Levitte claimed that President Sarkozy is a friend of Turkey and has visited the country at least 10 times in his life.