LONDON, April 8 (Reuters) - Turkish President Abdullah Gul said criticism of his country over its objections to the appointment of NATO's new chief was dangerous, in an interview published in Thursday's Financial Times.
Turkey had put itself at odds with its European allies after threatening to veto Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO head because of his handling of a 2006 crisis over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper.
France and Germany had strongly backed Rasmussen and the FT said Olli Rehn, European Union enlargement commissioner, and Bernard Kouchner, French foreign minister, had criticised Turkey's brinkmanship.
Turkey, a EU candidate, only backed down after U.S. President Barack Obama offered promises one of Rasmussen's deputies would be a Turk.
Gul said the criticism worried him. "It's very dangerous and it's making us disturbed," he said.
"We neither engaged in blackmail nor did we have an irrational request. We acted in a rational logical and in a modern way within the compromise which is a European culture .
"And indeed in the end we came to an understanding. Therefore I am surprised to see comments of that nature coming from certain countries. I don't find it terribly in line with the European spirit."
Turkey's objections to Rasmussen had threatened the image of unity NATO had sought to present at the military alliance's 60th anniversary summit. (Reporting by Tim Castle; Editing by Matthew Jones)
http://www.kyivpost.com/world/39230
Turks never stop to amaze you ...rational logical, modern way, compromise, European culture, European spirit.
They are still candidates and they behave like this, if they ever became members how would they behave?
