As talks floated for end-January, Turkish FM chides EU over Greek support
Turkey is committed to reforms and hopes to restart stalled negotiations that will pave the way for its accession to the European Union, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday, while also chiding Brussels for “favoring” Athens in a dispute over Eastern Mediterranean energy rights.
“Turkey is in Europe, and Europe is part of our destiny. The same thing applies to Europe,” Cavusoglu told a meeting with EU ambassadors in Ankara on Tuesday.
“The EU should not hinder but give us support,” he said, going on to hint at efforts by EU member-states to “force the EU and Turkey to oppose each other” by taking bilateral disputes to Brussels.
“We all saw in 2020 that threatening rhetoric will not lead to a solution, so, in December’s summit, the EU decided to adopt a more reasonable stance,” Cavusoglu said of last month’s meeting, where EU leaders stopped short of imposing tough sanctions on Turkey for violations against member-states Greece and Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean, saying that the issue will be broached again in March.
While the conclusions of that summit contained some “undesirable articles,” they nevertheless demonstrated an awareness of Turkey’s importance to the union, Cavusoglu was quoted by Daily Sabah as saying.
Cavusoglu’s comments came a day after the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced that exploratory talks between Turkey and Greece would resume on January 25.
