Key actors of the Balkan region, called by some a perpetual powder keg, on Wednesday reaffirmed in unison their joint political will to integrate into the Euro-Atlantic bodies at the end of a three-day regional summit held by NATO member and European Union candidate Turkey in İstanbul.

At the summit, Turkey, which has held the chairmanship-in-office of the South-East European Cooperation Process (SEECP) since June 2009, handed over its mission to Montenegro.Turkish President Abdullah Gül and Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic were joined by Serbian President Boris Tadic, whose country will hold the chairmanship-in-office following Montenegro, at a trilateral joint press conference held at the end of the summit.“The goal for all of us is this: to take place within the European and Euro-Atlantic structures and strengthen the common values in the entire region. In this regard, the EU and NATO dimension is very important in the Balkans,” Gül told reporters. He also noted that representatives of international organizations, including the EU, NATO, the United Nations, UNESCO, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Council of Europe, were also present at the summit.Hectic meetings held by SEECP members in recent years all had positive agendas instead of being venues for harsh debates on challenging problems, Gül said. A final declaration released at the end of the summit, “The İstanbul Declaration,” also highlighted the Euro-Atlantic orientation of the region, home to Balkan nations that barely talked to one another following atrocities committed in the Balkans in the 1990s, which marked the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II. President Abdullah Gül stands with leaders from other southeastern European countries as they pose for a group photo at the end of a three-day regional SEECP summit in İstanbul on Wednesday. With Slovenia's participation in the SEECP at the İstanbul summit, the number of members rose to 12. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Turkey were already members.“We reaffirmed our commitment to regional cooperation and good neighborly relations based on the principles of the SEECP Charter, the UN Charter, the Helsinki Final Act and the relevant documents of the OSCE and the Council of Europe as prerequisites for the advancement of the region's integration process to the European and Euro-Atlantic institutions as well as for ensuring and consolidating its stability and security,” the İstanbul Declaration said.“We highlighted our attachment to the European and Euro-Atlantic perspective of Southeast Europe, depending on individual aspirations of respective countries, which we believe is the best way to achieve lasting peace and stability as well as social and economic development in our region,” it highlighted. “We reiterated the importance of ‘regional ownership' and ‘all-inclusiveness' as indispensable principles for a successful and substantial implementation of regional cooperation in accordance with the statutory documents of respective regional initiatives or organizations in Southeast Europe.”The declaration did not explicitly refer to Kosovo, as its legal status is a matter of dispute among members of the SEECP, within which decisions are made through consensus. Yet, the 34th paragraph of the declaration is an implicit, but direct reference, to Kosovo's situation, Turkish diplomatic sources said. “We agreed on the importance of the consolidation of peace, security, stability and inclusiveness as a major contribution to the well-being of the entire region,” the related paragraph said.As a matter of fact, the focus of the summit declaration on the Euro-Atlantic integration of the region is also a clear reaffirmation of Turkey's foreign policy orientation, Turkish diplomatic sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Today's Zaman, in an apparent reference to heated debates over whether Turkey has turned its back to the Western world via its intensified activity within its own region.EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle's participation in the summit was welcomed by Turkish officials because they hoped Füle would clearly convey to EU leaders and “Eurocrats” in Brussels Turkey's determination to join the EU.“We want the EU to support the membership of countries and to refrain from taking steps that delay the process,” Gül said. “I believe all our [Balkan countries] paths will cross under the umbrella of the EU,” he added. 24 June 2010, ThursdayEMINE KART  İSTANBUL