Turkey Passes First Stage of EU Entry Process

Turkey has passed the first stage for acceptance into the European Union (EU), the Turkish news agency Cihan reported.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Gul said Turkey passed the inspection in science, research and education.
Accession talks began in October, and Turkey hopes to be a full EU member by 2015.
But there are still major stumbling blocks on Turkey’s path to the EU. The EU is concerned primarily about human rights issues, freedom of religion, the strong influence of the military on civilian affairs, and the ongoing Cyprus problem.
Ankara has also been criticized for a legal proceeding against prominent novelist Orhan Pamuk who allegedly insulted the country when he said in an interview with a Swiss newspaper that “thirty-thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it.”
The death tolls of Armenians and Kurds are extremely sensitive topics in Turkey.
A judge announced on Friday that the trial proceedings will be postponed until February.