Reforming the Turkish Constitution and resolving the country’s Kurdish issue are as important as opening chapters in EU accession negotiations, Spain’s top diplomat has said.

“That is another side of the negotiations,” Ambassador Joan Clos, whose country currently holds the EU term presidency, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review in an interview last week.

On both the constitutional reform package and the Kurdish initiative, Europe has pushed for a transformation in Turkey with the broad political participation of the opposition, Clos said, adding that the process of changing the Constitution is not merely about altering any particular articles.

“Instead of talking about a failure, let’s put it the other way. If Turkey is able to solve and get rid of this conflict, it would be a huge success,” he said. “Of course, there will be a lot of attempts where you don’t succeed but this is not the question. We know that we should try many options until one of them works. If the aim is to reach peace, it is important that every attempt be an honest one.”