Supporters found plenty of reasons to cheer the European Union’s recommendation of yesterday for talks to begin on making Muslim-majority Turkey a member.

But opponents said the EU would risk overreaching by stretching its borders deep into the Middle East and found cold comfort in the stiff conditions set by the EU’s head office to prevent Turkey from backsliding on democratic and human rights reforms.

Turkey’s traditional rival, Greece, welcomed the EU recommendation that – if approved by the 25 EU leaders at a December summit – could allow entry talks to begin in early 2005.

“A European Turkey will be not only in the interest of the Turkish people but also for the benefit of stability, security and prosperity in our region,” said Greek government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos. But he added that Turkish reforms “must continue and intensify.”

Some European leaders, aware that many are wary of giving EU status to an overwhelmingly Muslim country of 71 million people, stressed that negotiations would be long and that the outcome was not set in stone.

Austria’s chancellor said Turkish accession may take 20 years and that the EU recommendation was an “interesting starting point”.

“This is an open process and the result of this process cannot be guaranteed,” said Thomas Steg, a spokesman for German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. He said Schroeder will vote in December in favour of starting negotiations.

Beside a front-page photo of two women wearing headscarves, the Athens daily Kathimerini posed what for many remains an open question: “Is Ankara a European capital?”

Perhaps not yet, some think, but given time it could be. “Europe has acted well by saying, ‘You’re welcome, but you have to accept these criteria that are the same for all members,”’ said Izzet Yildirim, head of the Council of Kurdish Associations in Sweden.

In France, scholar Didier Billion said Turkey could act as Europe’s ambassador to the Middle East and the Caucasus, boost the bloc’s clout and act as an antidote to Islamic extremists’ arguments that the Muslim and Christian worlds are headed for a clash of civilisations.

“What more beautiful message could we address to the Muslim world that is crisscrossed by a thousand contradictions and difficulties than to say, ‘For us Europeans, who want to build a political project that is worthy of the name, the cultural-religious question is not a criteria for membership,” said Billion, editor of the book Turkey: Toward a Decisive Rendezvous with the European Union.

Latvia’s foreign minister, Artis Pabriks, told the AP that Turkey “would strengthen the role of the EU worldwide”.

“But on the other hand, I think the carefulness at the beginning is justifiable and understandable because Turkey is a very large country with a different cultural background,” the minister said.

Some were reassured by the EU commission’s warning that it would suspend or even halt membership negotiations over any serious and persistent failure by Turkey to respect democracy and human rights.

“It’s a very good thing that it was specified that the process can be interrupted,” said French lawmaker Bernard Accoyer, a leading member of President Jacques Chirac’s party.

Chirac himself, speaking on a visit to Vietnam, said negotiations would take “at minimum 10 or 15 years” and that France would need a referendum on the issue.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that requirement was unjust because none of the 10 new EU members that joined in May had to win voter approval first. He suggested that Turkey could simply wait out Chirac, whose current terms ends in 2007.

“No political leader will hold office until all

eternity,” Erdogan said.

Opponents of Turkish membership warned that once talks begin, they might be impossible to stop. Human rights advocates said Turkey must do more to eradicate torture.

“Turkey is not in Europe,” said former French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, a Socialist. “Never have negotiations opened without finishing with a ‘Yes.’ That means it’s a delusion when we are told today, ‘Don’t worry. It’s only the start of negotiations, we’ll see in 10 years or in 15 years.”’

Germany’s opposition argued that admitting Turkey would hamper moves toward greater European integration.

“Everyone has to know where their borders are – and for Europe, they certainly do not include Iraq, Iran or Syria,” said Edmund Stoiber, the governor of Bavaria who narrowly lost to Schroeder in 2002 elections. “Anyone who doesn’t know their limits is in danger of overstretching himself, and Europe is in acute danger of this.”

In Copenhagen, the International Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims said it was “very concerned that Turkey time and time again rejects allegations of torture of prisoners and detainees”.

The group said its partner organisation in Turkey, the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, treated 924 people who were subjected to torture in 2003, compared to 965 in 2002.

“To combat torture, a government has to be open-minded, transparent and honest,” said Inge Genefke, a medical doctor who co-founded the organisation. “Turkey must stop denying the facts about torture and start doing its task.” (AP)