- guardian.co.uk, Saturday 12 February 2000 02.59 GMT
Meanwhile in Lisbon, an Austrian minister was snubbed by her European Union colleagues in the first meeting since 14 EU member states severed bilateral ties with Vienna.
"Turks do not integrate into society," Mr Haider, whose Freedom party is a junior partner in the new coalition government, told the Turkish daily newspaper Hurriyet.
"They say, 'We don't want to be Austrian, we want to stay Turkish'," he said. "So I say, 'That's your problem, make up your mind'."
There are some 170,000 Turks living in Austria out of a total population of 8m, according to the Turkish embassy in Vienna.
Mr Haider said acquiring dual citizenship should not be easy. "You cannot take citizenship at no cost. The person has to prove that he is worthy of living in that country."
He said Germany and Britain had much tougher anti-immigration policies than Austria, but that immigration was an issue that needed addressing or it could potentially lead to social clashes.
"The number of foreign children in schools is very high. Austrian children cannot learn their own language. For this reason we have proposed that the number of foreign children in classrooms be limited to 30%."
Elisabeth Sickl, a Freedom party member, felt the chill of her country's political isolation yesterday when EU ministers in Lisbon drove home their displeasure at the new coalition government.
Officials cancelled a welcome ceremony and group photograph. Ms Sickl appeared disoriented and later said the Portuguese labour minister, Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, was the only minister who spoke to her.
Describing the meeting as "a bit cool", she said: "There's a lot of prejudice going on."
Agencies in Istanbul and Lisbon
