The moment of truth is approaching for Turkey's bid to join the European Union, EU enlargement chief Guenter Verheugen said Monday, as European leaders prepare to decide whether to open membership talks with the mainly Muslim country.
"We agree that now the moment of truth is coming. I made it very clear: nothing can and must postpone the decision that is foreseen for December," Verheugen told reporters after meeting Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.
At their December summit, EU leaders will assess Turkey's progress towards embracing the EU's political norms and decide whether to launch membership talks with Ankara.
Their decision will be based on a report, to be released by the European Commission in October, which will assess Turkey's reform drive towards meeting the EU criteria and recommend whether to open accession negotiations.
Verheugen pledged that the commission would provide an objective analysis of Turkey's drive to meet European standards and deliver a clear recommendation.
"We agree that there is now certainly sufficient critical mass on the table to allow us to make a final judgement... and I can promise you that it will be fair and objective and honest and that it will take into account the impressive progress that was made in Turkey," he said.
"The critical message will be a clear and firm decision," the commissioner added.
Verheugen, however, underlined that there were sill some hitches, especially in the implementation of reforms, but nonetheless gave encouraging praise to Ankara's efforts to clean up its poor human rights record, a key demand of the European Union.
"We will not hide the fact that there are difficulties in some areas and that of course implementation is not complete, but that's normal," he said.
Asked about allegations of torture in Turkey, Verheugen said it was "very difficult" to say whether the practice existed systematically in Turkey.
"Obviously there is important progress," he added.
Turkey, which has been an EU candidate since 1999, argues that a raft of reforms adopted since that year has enabled it to fulfill most of the political criteria needed to get the go-ahead for the start of accession talks.
"We believe that Turkey has come to the point which we describe as the critical threshold. We believe the commission will give an objective and honest report," Gul said.
Verheugen, who also met Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, later travelled to Diyarbakir, the regional capital of the country's mainly Kurdish southeast, where he was greeted with billboards which read "Citizen Verheugen, Welcome to Greater Europe" in English, Turkish and Kurdish.
The region has for years been the theatre of fighting between armed Kurdish rebels and government troops, but tensions had eased since the rebels announced a unilateral ceasefire in 1999 and Ankara granted Kurds the right to broadcast and teach school in their mother tongue as part of EU-minded reforms.
However clashes have intensified again since June when the rebels ended their ceasefire. Kurdish rebels have since been blamed for several attacks in southeast Turkey as well as a hotel bombing in Istanbul, which left two dead.
Verheugen made an "urgent" appeal for the fighting to stop.
"The use of violence and conflict must be effectively banned. Violence is not a solution," he said after meeting the city's mayor Osman Baydemir.
"I strongly believe that the best way to gurantee the political, economic, social and cultural rights to Kurdish citizens is European integration."
On Tuesday, the commissioner is scheduled to visit villagers who were forcibly evacuated from their homes near Diyarbakir in 1995 as part of measures to fight Kurdish rebels and who were allowed to return in 2001.
He will later travel to the western city of Izmir and the country's financial capital Istanbul before wrapping up his visit on Thursday.