Foreign Minister Ismail Cem, the EU term president,...

Foreign Minister Ismail Cem, the EU term president, Portugal's Foreign Minister Jaime Gama, and the EU commissioner for enlargement, Guenter Verheugen, staged a joint press briefing at the end of Turkey-EU Association Council. The three focused on the normalization of the relations between Turkey and EU at the briefing. Foreign Minister Ismail Cem said that the sensitivity of EU about death penalty is known, adding there is a draft law to abolish the death penalty, which had not been executed in Turkey for 16 years. The majority of the coalition parties also favour the abolishment of the death penalty, he said, but a special situation emerged after the capture of Abdullah Ocalan. Cem said that he couldn't give a specific date, but he hoped the death penalty would be abolished in Turkey.