NATO urges EU to boost defence partnership with Turkey

08/07/2008

PARIS, France -- NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Monday (July 7th) urged the EU to boost its defence partnership with Turkey. De Hoop Scheffer stressed that the EU should do more to ease tensions in its relations with the country. "We cannot allow this to go on, as our soldiers are engaged side by side in dangerous missions," he said, adding that Turkey's exclusion from the European Defence Agency is one of the major problems in Turkish-EU defence relations. De Hoop Scheffer called on the EU to search for a way to overcome the Greek Cypriots' rejection of Turkish membership in the agency. (Zaman, Hurryiet - 08/07/08, Reuters, Anadolu news agency - 07/07/08)