COPENHAGEN, November 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said Saturday that Turkey can become a member of the European Union under the same conditions as the other candidate countries.

On Friday, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who is leading the discussions on the future shape of the EU, told a French newspaper that admitting Turkey as a member would spell the end of the European bloc, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

"At the summit in Helsinki in 1999, the Danish government together with the other EU countries' governments, decided to give Turkey a status as a candidate country. That decision has been made," the Danish foreign ministry said in a statement.

"That means that Turkey can become a member of the EU on the same conditions as the other candidate countries," the ministry stressed.

Giscard d'Estaing, a former French president chairing the convention on the future of the EU, angered both Turkish and EU officials when he told Paris-based Le Monde that Turkey could not join the Union since most of its territory was in Asia.

But The Danish EU presidency rejected this view in its statement. "When Turkey meets the political criteria, accession negotiations can begin, and when the country meets all criteria, it can become a member," it said.

"At the summit in Copenhagen in December the EU's heads of government decide on the next phase in Turkey's candidacy. The EU is currently preparing that decision," the ministry concluded.

There is a strong difference of views in the EU between those who believe Europe has an interest and a duty to embrace Turkey, and those who say the Muslim country's traditions and culture are too different for it to be allowed in.

In the French town of Poitiers, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said Saturday that Giscard d'Estaing's views were "a long standing conviction ... but personal."

The EU summit in Copenhagen, at which 10 countries are to be given the nod to join the EU in 2004, will take place on December 12 and 13.

Meanwhile, Israeli military radio reported Saturday that Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu favors Israel joining the European Union (EU) and has asked Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to help him achieve that goal.

Netanyahu, who hopes to unseat Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as head of their Likud party and lead it to victory in January general elections, made the request over the telephone soon after he joined a caretaker cabinet on Wednesday, the radio said.

The report did not say what the Italian premier's reaction was. Israel is bound to the 15-member EU by an open-ended association accord, signed in 1975 and regularly renewed since, and which will eventually lead to a free trade zone.

The EU is Israel's major trade partner. On the political front, the accord provides for dialogue between Israel and the EU, which translates into the yearly meeting of an association committee at the ministerial level.

On October 9, the European Commission formally recommended the entry of 10 countries into the European Union (E.U.) by 2004, in a historic expansion of the 15-member bloc through central Europe and the Mediterranean.

Thirteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the E.U.'s executive arm gave the green light for a reshaping of political Europe that will now also include a country of long troubled former Yugoslavia.

The 20-member commission approved the report, which gives detailed assessments of 13 candidate states, ahead of its presentation to the European parliament, an E.U. source said.

The report noted that two poorer Balkan countries, Romania and Bulgaria, hope to join the E.U. in 2007, but failed to give Turkey a start date for negotiations.

The 10 countries approved for E.U. membership are: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Israel, which has been lobbying for membership in the bloc, did not feature in the E.U.'s potential candidate list.

Israel’s exclusion followed a harsh E.U. criticism of the occupying state for a massacre which took place on October 7 in which 16 Palestinian civilians were killed. A statement from the E.U. presidency condemned "the arbitrary use of extra judicial killings, which will not bring security to the Israeli people."