Don't change rules in mid-game: Turkish PM to France, Germany

(WARSAW) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday called France and Germany not to change the established criteria on his country's accession bid to the 27-nation bloc.

"When you begin a match and we are playing you can't change the rules, it's silly. We don't want to be surprised by changed rules, we've spoken to (French) President Sarkozy and (German) Chancellor Merkel," Erdogan told reporters at a joint press conference in Warsaw with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have both voiced their opposition to Turkey joining the EU in the run-up to the European elections on June 7.

"These are very unfortunate comments from both President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel," Erdogan said. "What was applied to the 27 (EU) countries that are members should also be applied to Turkey," he added, thanking 2004 EU entrant Poland for sustained support for Turkey's bid to join.

PTusk vowed to impress upon EU leaders that the terms agreed for Turkey's EU accession must not be changes.

"In talks I will remind my European partners that previously no one told Turkey that after fulfilling certain obvious criteria, resolving certain problems, some kind of new criteria or barriers will appear," Tusk said.

"You can't treat a partner like this. We have to mutually respect each other. Execute the agreements we made, respect the words we have uttered and when everything will match what we agreed a few years ago, then the decision about accession should be automatic," Tusk said.

Tusk and Erdogan also focused on bilateral trade which the Turkish leader said totalled 3.5 billion dollars last year.

"I think we should raise this number and I propose we should reach five billion dollars by 2013," Erdogan said.

"Turkish companies are very interested in participating in the construction of infrastructure for the 2012 Euro cup finals," he added, referring to Poland as the co-host of the UEFA Euro 2012 football finals with Ukraine.

Poland recently awarded Italian-Turkish company Astaldi-Gulermak a 925 million euro (1.25 billion dollar) contract for the construction of the 6.1 kilometre-long (3.8 miles) second line of the Warsaw metro under the Vistula river cutting through the Polish capital.

Erdogan also reiterated support for the long-planned Nabucco natural gas pipeline project, which is to deliver Caspian Sea gas to the EU while bypassing Russia and Ukraine.

"We are a transit country and we support the construction of the Nabucco project. Diversification of sources is very important," Erdogan said.

The 3,300-kilometre (2,050-mile) pipeline between Turkey and Austria, which is supposed to start pumping gas to Europe by 2014, needs an estimated 7.9 billion euros (10.6 billion dollars) in gas supplies from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to start working.

Transit nations Turkey and Georgia and gas suppliers Azerbaijan and Egypt have endorsed the Nabucco plan, which has also been long supported by Poland.