Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 27 February 2001.
Keith Vaz
Minister of State (Foreign and Commonwealth Office)
12:00,
27 February 2001
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work as Chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Turkey. He has developed a close relationship with a number of groups in Turkey. I assure him that we are concerned, as he and others are, about the state of the currency in Turkey, and we are monitoring the situation carefully. As he knows, last year at Helsinki, Turkey was given the status of a candidate country for admission to the European Union. It is considering its accession partnership, which was agreed on a political basis on 4 December last year. We shall ensure that that process continues, and shall give Turkey any assistance that we can. However, the fact remains that Turkey must meet the Copenhagen criteria on human rights issues. We are monitoring that carefully, and we shall continue to work with Turkey as an ally.