Turkey's foreign minister said that Turkey's European Union (EU) membership would not be like memberships of other countries, reported World Bulletin.
Foreign Minister Babacan interviewed with German "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung" newspaper, and said that Turkey would not only be the 28th or 29th EU member.
"Turkey is fairly big, and it has a culture very different from many EU member states," Babacan said.
Babacan told the newspaper that Turkey was getting closer to the values of EU member states each passing day.
"Islam is uniting with democracy and modernism in Turkey. We have begun negotiations in six chapters so far," Babacan said.
Babacan also said that the union would open negotiations with Turkey in more chapters in June and Turkey was trying to progress in all chapters.
"We will have fulfilled required conditions for EU membership by 2013. However, we do not know when the EU will be ready to admit Turkey," he told the German newspaper.
Babacan expressed thought that it would be helpful for the union to set a date for Turkey's membership if it wanted the country to speed up its reforms.
Turkey became a European Union (EU) candidate country in December 1999. The union launched accession talks with Turkey on October 3rd, 2005.