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This article deals with the Turkish accession to the EU as a foreign policy choice of the European Union. It will be divided in three parts: first (in Section II) we will consider some of the issues related to the substantive foreign policy alignment
of the EU and Turkey during the accession period and after accession respectively. Thereafter (in Section III) we will be concerned with the way in which the EU uses the accession process to further its own foreign policy agenda by seeking to achieve reforms within the Turkish society. Three areas have been chosen: Turkish penal law reforms, human rights and the place of the military in Turkish society. In a third part of the article, the attention will shift to member State foreign policy. It will be set out, mainly at the example of Cyprus, how the accession process can be used as an instrument of national foreign policy (Section IV). In the concluding section (Section V), it will be asked what lessons can be drawn from the emerging 'Turkish agenda': it will become clear that the accession of Turkey is to a great extent a foreign policy decision. The question is also whether the EU politics of approximation by accession comes across as a sound policy or not. This article illustrates in more than one way the complexity of European policy making in the Eastern Mediterranean in the years
to come.
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