Mount Ararat rest." Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, also mentioned Mount Ararat as the resting place of Noah's Ark in his speech at the Etchmiadzin Cathedral during his visit to Armenia in 2010. Those critical of this view point out that Ararat was the name of the country, not the mountain, at the time when Genesis was written. Arnold wrote in his 2008 Genesis commentary, "The location 'on the mountains' of Ararat indicates not a specific mountain by that name, but rather the mountainous region of the land of Ararat." Ararat has traditionally been the main
Accession of Turkey to the European Union in the Luxembourg European Council of 1997 in which accession talks were started with central and eastern European states and Cyprus, but not Turkey. During the 1990s, Turkey proceeded with a closer integration with the European Union by agreeing to a customs union in 1995. Moreover, the Helsinki European Council of 1999 proved a milestone as the EU recognised Turkey as a candidate on equal footing with other potential candidates. The next significant step in Turkey–EU relations came with the December 2002 Copenhagen European Council. According to it, "the EU would open negotiations with Turkey 'without delay' if the European