Yesterday, the European Parliament adopted its annual report on Turkey, praising Turkey's decision to establish bilateral contacts with Armenia, calling on Ankara to recognize the Armenian Genocide, protect the Armenian cultural heritage, and intensify efforts to effectively resolve the plight of Armenians and other minorities in Turkey.
The European Parliament has expressed concern that Turkey's foreign policy in recent years contradicts the European Union's priorities, including in the Caucasus. The body called on EU member states to consider banning the ‘Gray Wolves’.
Turkish Foreign Ministry responds to European Parliament report.
“While the need to strengthen the relations between Turkey and the EU through mutual efforts is evident, we do not accept and reject the EP's biased and unrealistic assessments in the report, which ignore this need through a shallow and non-visionary approach.
Our first and foremost expectation from the EP is not to be a tool on the agenda of narrow-minded circles and to display an encouraging attitude towards EU institutions in order to revitalize the accession process. Unfortunately, the EP has adopted the exact opposite stance so far. In fact, such an attitude by the EP, which even shows tolerance towards members of terrorist organizations settling and propagating terrorism within its premises, is not surprising. Thus, the EP has lost both its credibility and trustworthiness before the Turkish public opinion.
Therefore, allegations in the report regarding our country concerning democracy, rule of law and human rights, and the unfounded arguments on the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus issues, which reflect one or two EU members’ narrow-minded efforts to serve their own interests, are null and void for us.
Our expectation from the EU is the fulfillment by all EU institutions of their obligations towards Turkey, and in this context, the revitalization of the accession process, acceleration of the Visa Liberalization Dialogue, launch of negotiations to update the Customs Union, increase of the cooperation in the fight against terrorism and specifically activation of the Voluntary Humanitarian Admission Scheme in the context of migration cooperation.
Instead of encouraging steps to be taken on these issues, this report, which evaluates Turkey from a shallow perspective, provides yet another example of the EP's attitude, which is detached from reality, ideological and biased, and thus only damages the EP’s reputation,” Turkish Foreign Ministry’s statement reads.
