BERLIN -- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder warned his conservative opponents on Thursday not to try to stir up public sentiment against Turkish membership of the European Union, saying Muslims belonged in Europe.

"If its citizens so choose, Turkey can be an important, perhaps the most important, bridge between continental Europe and the eastern Mediterranean region," Schroeder told the German Parliament in a declaration on last week's EU summit.

"Those who want to use the topic of Turkish accession to instigate a new clash of civilizations along the lines of Christian Western Europe against Islam want to fool people that Muslims can be kept out of our culture and society," he told Reuters. "That is false and dangerous. Muslims belong to the obvious daily life of all European societies."

At a summit in Copenhagen last week, EU leaders agreed to review Turkey's human rights performance in December 2004 before deciding whether to open formal membership negotiations.

Schroeder's Social Democrats and their junior coalition partners, the Greens, worry that the Conservatives will try to exploit the issue of Turkey's EU bid in two key regional votes in February that could cement their control of the Upper House.

After Germany's top court blocked controversial immigration Legislation on Wednesday, the center-left government is also concerned that the hardline Conservative Premier of Hesse State, Roland Koch, could make keeping more foreigners out of Germany a central part of his reelection platform.

___ Turkish Vote on the Rise --- Schroeder has become a firm supporter of eventual Turkish EU membership of late, as he tries to patch up dented ties with Washington, a strong ally of Turkey, and seeks to woo support from the growing number of Turks taking up German citizenship.

"Whoever denies that Turks in Turkey are capable of democracy cannot seriously campaign for the democratic engagement of Turkish fellow citizens in Germany," he said.

A survey conducted after the German general election in September that Schroeder narrowly won showed that 70 percent of the 400,000 Germans of Turkish origin entitled to vote had taken part in the election, 60 percent of whom voted for the SPD.

A poll in ***Der Spiegel*** magazine this week showed 60 percent of Germans are in favor of Turkish membership of the EU but other surveys have shown less support for the move.

Schroeder added that reforming the institutions of the EU to prepare it for the accession of 10 new members mainly from former communist Eastern Europe agreed in Copenhagen would be the focus of German strategy on Europe in the coming months.

Schroeder said Germany would work together closely on this with France, building on other recent joint initiatives: "As has been shown again in the last few weeks, when France and Germany proceed together, the whole of Europe benefits," he said.

The forum working on proposals for EU institutional reform should present a draft constitution for the bloc by next summer which should then be agreed by eu leaders at a December 2003 summit in Rome, Schroeder said.