Turkey not to take first step on suspending talks on EU membership
By Kamila Aliyeva
Turkey is not ruling out the idea of EU membership despite the escalation of tensions between Ankara and Brussels.
Not Ankara, but the EU will take the first step towards ending negotiations on Turkey's accession to the European Union, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, Turkish media reported on October 13.
The Turkish President noted that Ankara will not lose anything in case Turkey is not admitted to the EU.
Earlier, Erdogan said that the relations between Turkey and the EU turned into a theatrical performance.
"Turkey calls on the EU to be more sincere towards it," he said.
Previously, Turkish Minister Omar Celik said that Turkey has not turned away from the EU. He noted that even taking into account the fact that the EU did not support Turkey during the attempted military coup, Ankara hasn’t halted relations with the EU.
The EU should also continue negotiations with Ankara, according to Celik.
"If Turkey wanted to break off relations with the European Union, it wouldn’t require the EU to open new negotiating points," he said. The minister noted that after Brexit, the EU is no longer as it was before.
At the same time, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu previously announced that the number of supporters of the country's accession to the EU among Turkish citizens has fallen significantly.
The future of Turkey’s EU membership talks has become a hot topic for discussion amid rising tensions between Ankara and Brussels.
Turkey’s accession negotiations started in 2005, but until Turkey agrees to apply the Additional Protocol of the Ankara Association Agreement to Cyprus, eight negotiation chapters will not be opened and no chapter will be provisionally closed. The talks have reached a deadlock in 2007 as Turkey was not ready to change its position on Cyprus while German and French governments also opposed the country’s full EU membership.
Turkey’s ties with the EU have worsened last July after a failed coup attempt. Ankara also criticized Germany, Belgium and several other European countries for turning a blind eye to outlawed groups and terrorist organizations hostile to Turkey.
European officials have repeatedly questioned widespread investigations by the Turkish authorities into the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), which Ankara accuses of having organized the defeated military coup attempt.
However, Ankara insists it is acting to maintain security in the country, which has seen hundreds of its citizens killed in terrorist attacks by different groups over the past years.
Relations further deteriorated following an April referendum which expanded the powers of the president. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's (PACE) recent decision to reopen a political monitoring process against Turkey also negatively affected Ankara-Brussels ties.
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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva
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