EU Says Turks Lose Bid if Rebel Kurd Is Executed

A day after the European Union accepted Turkey as a candidate for membership, the organization’s foreign policy chief said Turkey won’t be granted entry if it executes Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.

“It would be very difficult to have a member in the European family who does not have the same respect for life,” Javier Solana, the EU’s high commissioner for foreign affairs and security, said here Saturday.

The EU’s decision Friday to make Turkey a candidate for membership--after snubbing the Ankara government two years ago--came with tough conditions. Entry talks cannot begin until Turkey settles territorial disputes with neighboring Greece and improves its human rights record.

Solana said that includes not executing Ocalan, who has been sentenced to death for leading a 15-year battle for Kurdish self-rule that has killed more than 30,000 people.

As they ended their two-day summit here in the Finnish capital, the leaders of the 15-member European Union on Saturday gave the final go-ahead for the creation of their own rapid-reaction military force. The contingent of 60,000 troops could be operational by 2003. The leaders also sat down to lunch with their prospective counterparts from Turkey and the 12 other countries eligible for membership.

After the meal, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit called his country’s candidacy “a landmark not only for Europe but for the world as well.”

Earlier, Ecevit made clear that he would not waver on Cyprus. Turkish troops seized northern Cyprus in 1974 in support of ethnic Turks. The invasion was triggered by a coup attempt by ethnic Greeks seeking the island’s union with Greece.