EU Postpones Talks on Turkey

Britain today warned of a "catastrophe" for the European Union as a ceremony marking the start of negotiations on Turkey joining the 25-strong bloc was postponed indefinitely.

The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said the talks could not proceed in the face of Austria's opposition to full Turkish membership. Mr Straw said the EU was "standing on the edge of a precipice".

No new date for the discussions, which had been due to start at 4pm today, was given immediately.

Speaking before reports of the delays, Mr Straw, chairing the EU foreign ministers meeting as part of the British presidency, said: "We are at a difficult stage in these negotiations and I cannot say what the outcome will be.

"Yes, we are near [to a deal] but we are also on the edge of a precipice. If we go the right way we reach the sunny uplands. If we go the wrong way, it could be catastrophic for the European Union."

EU leaders last year gave Ankara October 3 2005 as a start date to begin membership talks. But Austria has argued in recent weeks that the 2004 agreement, which set out Turkish EU membership as a "shared objective" of all parties, should also have put forwards a privileged partnership with the EU as an equally desirable outcome for the Turks.

Austria is isolated within the EU on Turkish membership, which is supported by the 24 other states. But Vienna insists it is speaking for those across the EU who do not support accession. According to a poll published yesterday by the Austria Press Agency, 54% of EU citizens oppose Turkey joining the bloc. The figure rises to 73% in Austria, where a historical antagonism towards Turkish Ottoman imperialism combines with modern-day fears of Muslim immigration from the poor east.

Turkey rejects Austria's proposal for an explicit alternative to full membership, which it argues would give it a second-class status. The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tyyip Erdogan, yesterday also warned that EU would have passed up an opportunity to bridge a "clash of civilisations" between the Christian and Muslim worlds if it scuppered Turkey's 40-year dream of joining the European mainstream.

"Either [the EU] will show political maturity and become a global power, or it will end up a Christian club [...] We will, however, be saddened at that a project for the alliance of civilisations will be harmed."

A failure to reach an agreement would be a blow to Britain, which is Ankara's greatest champion in the EU. Greece, Turkey's historic adversary but now a supporter of Ankara's EU bid, yesterday spoke strongly in favour of membership, as did Catherine Colonna, the French Europe minister.

Joschka Fischer, the outgoing German foreign minister, also made an impassioned speech in which he said Europe could not abandon its commitment to Turkey.

He warned his colleagues that Turkey might walk away if the EU watered down the terms on offer any further.

"If you want to open negotiations, you have to remember we have to have someone to open them with," Reuters reported him as telling the meeting.

Diplomats said Turkey had raised new objections to a clause in the talks mandate that stipulates Ankara may not block accession of EU states to international organisations and treaties.

Turkish nationalists and the powerful military argued that might prevent Turkey preventing a divided Cyprus from joining Nato, but Mr Straw and the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said the clause did not alter sovereign defence arrangements.

If Turkey does begin membership talks it could be more than a decade before it has met the necessary criteria and the EU is prepared to absorb a large new member. It is likely that Turkish citizens would also face a transitional period similar to that some EU states of the have imposed on central and eastern European members that would restrict their ability to work elsewhere in the EU.