Simon Hughes
Oral Question - Turkey and The EU
Simon Hughes (North Southwark & Bermondsey, LDem)
As part of the support for Turkey's joining the EU, what will the Minister do to ensure that Turkey understands that it must withdraw its troops from Cyprus as part of a settlement to restore the integrity of Cyprus? What will we do to monitor human rights in Turkey so that there are guarantees that faith minorities, ethnic minorities and other minorities have full rights at all times throughout Turkey?
Denis MacShane (Rotherham, Lab)
On the first point, under the Annan plan, the number of troops would have been reduced to the number contained in the 1960 treaty—from some 25,000 or 30,000 today to fewer than 1,000. Unfortunately, the Greek Cypriot population voted massively to reject the Annan plan, which would have helped to solve that problem. The hon. Gentleman is right about the second point. I stress that we do raise the specific issue of different faiths in Turkey, especially different Christian faiths and the rights of their members to have their churches and seminaries. Under the EU's charter of fundamental rights, which is part of the new treaty, an absolute condition of EU membership is respect for everybody's right to manifest their religion. Again, that is a reason to support the new constitutional treaty. It is remarkable that the Turks want in to Europe, while the Tory party wants out.
