European Commission disclaimed its Commissioner for enlargement Olli Rehn who earlier said that Turkey's attitude regarding the selection of the next NATO secretary general would affect the country's EU membership process negatively.

Rehn had said last week "Turkey's opposition to the Danish prime minister's bid to become the next NATO chief is 'bad' for Ankara's EU membership aspirations."

Christiane Hohmann, a spokesperson of the Commission, said on Monday that NATO and the EU were "different structures and organizations", adding that those two issues could "not be associated with each other."

She said that Turkey's EU membership was not related with its decisions regarding NATO.

In that meeting, Turkish President Abdullah Gul had said that it was a NATO meeting, not an EU meeting, and the goals and targets of NATO were different, thus a decision which was made in the EU did not influence NATO. Gul said that the statements of Rehn were "unpleasant."


Agencies

Güncelleme Tarihi: 06 Nisan 2009, 22:07