PARIS -- On Dec. 17 leaders of the 25 European Union states will consider Turkey's request to join their club. That doesn't mean Turkey is set to be admitted anytime soon. For budgetary reasons, it's not likely to happen before 2015.
Turkey's bid was turned down in 1997 for two reasons: human-rights violations, noticeably in the treatment of the Kurdish minority, and the Turkish Army's occupation of 40 percent of the East Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
An "independent" republic was created on Cyprus following the July 1974 Turkish invasion, but its juridical foundation is so weak that Ankara's Cabinet is practically the only government that has ever recognized it.