LUXEMBOURG, Oct. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- European Union (EU) foreign ministers are working deep into the night on Sunday in a last-ditch effort to resolve the standoff blocking the launch of accession talks with Turkey on Monday.

    The ministers need to persuade Austria to drop its demand that talks with Ankara lead to something short of full membership.

    Turkey has made clear that it will not accept such an offer and threatened to shun away from Monday's talks if so.

    At an EU summit in December, EU leaders decided to launch membership negotiations with Turkey this Monday. The start of the talks, however, hit a snag when Austria insisted on giving the Muslim country a "privileged partnership."

    According to the EU's rules, Turkey's entry needs the "nod" from all 25 EU member states. The governments are trying to work out a negotiating framework -- basic rules -- for the negotiations, which are expected to last 10 years or longer.

    Britain, which is holding the EU presidency, arranged Sunday's meeting, obviously in an 11th-hour attempt to clear the way for Monday.

    Turkey was also in intensive diplomacy to try to secure the start of talks as scheduled.

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Austrian Prime Minister Wolfgang Schussel on the phone on Sunday. He told reporters in Ankara that he got positive response from Schussel.

    Just hours before the EU foreign ministers' meeting, Erdogan challenged the EU to be a "world player" rather than a "Christian club."

    "Either the EU will decide to become a world force and a world player, which would show its political maturity, or it will limit itself to a Christian club," Erdogan told a conference of his Justice and Development Party in a northwestern spa resort in Turkey.

    The prime minister described the EU foreign ministers' decision on talks as a test of the bloc's commitment to the values of pluralism and democracy.

    However, Europeans generally take a negative attitude toward Turkey's EU membership, according to opinion polls.

    In France and Germany, the so-called EU engine, 47 percent of the population in France are against Turkey's accession while merely 11 percent are in favor. In Germany, the figures are 40 percent, 15 percent and 43 percent respectively, according to a recent survey conducted by Transatlantic Trends.

    Upon arrival in Luxembourg, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw admitted that there are many difficulties in Sunday night's emergency meeting.

    French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy warned in Paris just before Sunday's meeting that the starting of EU entry talks does not guarantee eventual membership. "To make believe that negotiations means entry, that's a lie," Douste-Blazy told France's Europe 1 radio.

    Turkey signed a protocol in July to extend its customs union agreement to the 10 new EU member states, including Cyprus, satisfying the conditions for the start of membership talks.

    However, Ankara said at the same time that the signing of the protocol did not mean any form of political recognition of Cyprus.

    Ankara refuses to recognize the Greek-Cypriot government in the south, which represents the whole Republic of Cyprus in the EU. EU rules require a new member state to recognize all its existing members.

    The EU governments issued a compromise counterstatement last month, allowing Turkey to recognize Cyprus before it formally joins the EU, thus making the start of talks on Monday possible. Enditem