Chirac's Turnaround? The country may not have replaced Iraq as an wedge issue, but its EU dream is still a point of contention.(Jacques Chirac)(Turkey)

Byline: Owen Matthews

France may have gotten some of what it wanted with last week's handover of sovereignty in Iraq. But that doesn't mean that French President Jacques Chirac is through tweaking his U.S. counterpart, George W. Bush. The latest bone of contention? Last week's host for the NATO summit, Turkey.

At the summit, Chirac quarreled over whether NATO would help train Iraqi security forces in Iraq or not, and opposed an American proposal to deploy NATO's strike force in Afghanistan for fall elections. But he saved his most caustic comments for Bush, who had earlier promoted Turkey's admission to the European Union in a public speech. "He ventured into territory which is not his concern," Chirac said archly. "It would be like me telling the U.S. how to run its affairs with Mexico."

The last place Ankara wants to be is in the middle of a pissing match between Paris and Washington. France is key to winning the votes in December to grant Turkey a start date for negotiations on accession to the EU. Opposition among conservative lawmakers and the general population is already high, and if the embattled Chirac comes to see the issue as a vote winner at home, Turkey's bid could be doomed.

Yet the Turks themselves are more sanguine. The day after his critique, Chirac emerged from a meeting with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to admit that the path to Turkish accession was "irreversible." Official Ankara was delighted--the Turkish line is that Chirac has so far kept his enthusiasm ...