BRITAIN: The Catholic primate of England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, has questioned whether Turkey should be admitted to the EU.
On Wednesday, Lord Carey, former Dr George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of 77 million Anglicans worldwide, raised a similar question.
In a 2004 interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger), spoke against Turkish admission to the EU because it is a majority Muslim country with Muslim roots.
"In the course of history, Turkey has always represented a different continent, in permanent contrast to Europe. Making the two continents identical would be a mistake. It would mean a loss of richness, the disappearance of the cultural to the benefit of economics," he said.
Archbishop Murphy O'Connor yesterday echoed the pope's view on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, saying the predominantly Muslim state was not culturally part of Europe.
He played down controversy over the pope's recent speech in Germany, but accepted there were passages in the Koran which could be read as an "incentive to violence - as there are in the Old Testament".
The cardinal questioned the position of British prime minister Tony Blair, who has argued for Turkish membership of the EU on the grounds that exclusion would be damaging. "There may be another view that the mixture of cultures is not a good idea."
He added: "I think the question is for Europe - will the admission of Turkey to the EU be something that benefits a proper dialogue or integration of a very large, predominantly Islamic country in a continent that fundamentally is Christian?"
On the same programme the previous day, Lord Carey said: "Surely a European community has to be more than economic? It has to have common values and so on." He continued "I think the jury is still out on Turkey."
Reuters adds: A judge cleared a prominent novelist yesterday of insulting Turkish identity.
Brussels welcomed the ruling but a European Commission spokeswoman said a law used to prosecute Elif Shafak still posed a significant threat to freedom of expression.
The judge acquitted Shafak due to lack of evidence a passage in her book about the massacres of Armenians during Ottoman rule was an offence under article 301 of the penal code.
