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Denmark supports Turkey’s bid to join EU
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President Gül thanked the PM for supporting the prospect of Turkish EU membership
Denmark will support Turkey on the road towards EU accession, PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt (S) declared yesterday at a press conference with Turkey's President Adbullah Gül.
“I reconfirmed Denmark’s support of EU membership perspective for Turkey,” she later told DR Nyheder.
Thorning-Schmidt also underlined that some aspects of the Turkish society had to be improved to make accession possible.
“I indicated concern over some topics such as the independence of the legal system and freedom of speech,” she said at the conference.
Turkey thanks Denmark
Gül expressed his gratitude for the Danish support of Turkey’s accession to the EU.
“We now want to see a successful end to the application negotiations and remove the political and artificial barriers blocking the process,” he said.
Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gül, is on a three-day state visit in Denmark until March 19. His controversial Islamist background has met resistance in secular Turkey, where religion and the state are officially separated.