Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul (l) and Foreign Minister of Luxembourg Nicolas Schmit (r) pose for photographers prior to a meeting in Ankara yesterday.

ANKARA (AFP) - Turkey yesterday reaffirmed its determination to join the European Union following criticism that it had recently lost enthusiasm in its efforts to become a member.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said EU membership remained the country’s “top priority” and that there was no weakness in this determination.

“The process of democratization will be followed with the same determination,” Gul was quoted as saying by the Turkish news agency Anatolia.

Earlier yesterday Luxembourg Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Nicolas Schmit, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said Turkish EU membership efforts had lost momentum.

“After the Brussels summit there has been a loss of enthusiasm. That has created certain worries” about the determination of Ankara to join the EU, Schmit said on the television news channel NTV.

“We cannot say there has been a very good atmosphere” in Turkey on the subject of the European adhesion process, Schmit said before a meeting with Gul.

Schmit emphasized the necessity for Turkey to continue its pro-European momentum and to fully implement the reforms already adopted.

During the past five years Turkey has undertaken a raft of reforms to meet requirements for EU membership.

However the opposition and the pro-European lobby in Turkey fear that the Turkish government has lost the momentum after the relief of getting a date — October 3, 2005 — for the opening of EU membership negotiations, during a summit of European leaders in December.

Deniz Baykal, leader of the Social Democratic opposition in Parliament, has criticized Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) for not doing enough to prepare for the accession talks, stressing that the government has yet to pick a chief negotiator for the arduous talks expected to last as long as 15 years.

However, Erdogan has said his government’s chief negotiator would be named soon and hinted that it could be Gul.

Ankara has been particularly slow during the past year — and must make special efforts before October 3 — in such vital areas as resolving the Cyprus problem, cultural rights for Turkey’s Kurds and religious minorities, as well as implementing reforms already adopted, analysts have said.