CORRECTS - Turkey-EU summit due in early March

CORRECTS HEADLINE, BY LINE, DECK, TITLE OF TEODOR MELESCANU

By Yusuf Hatip and Ata Ufuk Seker

BRUSSELS (AA) - Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu said Monday they were working to organize a summit between Turkey and the European Union to be held in Bucharest in early March.

Romania is currently heading the EU's rotating presidency.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency in Brussels, Melescanu said: "We strongly support the idea of continuing negotiations with Turkey and one of our first proposal ideas is to insist on organizing an Association Council between European Union and Turkey."

"In order to boost and accelerate negotiations on different issues, including the possibility of finding solutions to some of the discourse be it on Custom Unions or others," he added.

The Romanian top diplomat went on to say: "We are also intending to work for a kind of event which will permit [Turkish] President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and other officials from the European Union to meet in Bucharest, of course Inshallah if everything will be okay. And they are looking forward for this and working hard. There is no fixed date."

"We are working [on the meeting] now. I think at the beginning of March, we will have a possibility like that," he added.

After a long time, the Turkey-EU summit was held in the Bulgarian city of Varna last March.