TURKEY - October 3 2005 14:33 / Last updated - Path clear for Turkey to discuss joining EU.

By Daniel Dombey in Luxembourg and Vincent Boland in Ankara-Published October 3 2005 20:30- The EU on Monday cleared the way for membership talks with Turkey after a day of high drama in which failure was only narrowly averted and even EU foreign ministers were left in the dark about the proposed deal. Jack Straw, UK foreign secretary, bridged an internal EU rift with Austria over the start of talks but was left waiting for several hours while Ankara decided whether to accept the proposals. The wait came to an end at 7pm Luxembourg time, after more than 24 hours of negotiations, when Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, said he was flying to the EU foreign ministers' meeting. "This is an historic moment," Mr Gul said. "Turkey is stepping into a new era." Earlier in the day, Mr Straw had appeared to be failing in his attempt to broker a deal on an issue that is at the heart of Britain's presidency of the EU. Turkey has sought entry to the EU for 43 years. Tony Blair, UK PM, and George W. Bush, US president, believe that membership would foster ties with the Muslim world and bring a strategically vital country closer to the west. Mr Straw had warned his counterparts that they were on the edge of a "precipice". Other ministers said that, by pulling back from past promises to begin the talks with Turkey on October 3, the EU would be jeopardising its strategic interests, breaking its word and plunging into a fresh crisis. The final proposals remained a closely held secret; British officials would not even allow Cyril Svoboda, the Czech foreign minister, to see the text sent to Ankara. In arranging the deal, Britain had to address doubts expressed by Austria, where opinion polls put opposition to Turkey's membership of the EU at 80 per cent. Ursula Plassnik, Austrian foreign minister, had called for the EU to scale down its commitment to full Turkish membership and place greater emphasis on the limits to the bloc's ability to take in new members. However the final deal maintains Turkish entry to the EU as the clear goal of the negotiations. The final hurdle was Turkish worries that EU demands for it to move its foreign policy towards the EU's could stop it from blocking Cyprus from joining Nato. The EU provided assurances intended to satisfy the powerful Turkish military.The breakthrough was enough to send the Istanbul stock market to a record high, with the market's main IMKB index rising 2.9 per cent. The Turkish lira was slightly weaker against the dollar and the euro. Vienna was also pleased on Monday when Carla del Ponte, the UN chief prosecutor for former Yugoslavia, cleared the way for its ally, Croatia, to join the EU. She declared Croatia in "full co-operation" with her court, so ending an impasse over an alleged war criminal that had stalled the start of Zagreb's membership talks since March.