Erdogan: Turkey to Open Border if EU Continues its Threats

European Parliament approves motion to temporarily feeze accession talks with Turkey on Thursday, Turkish Hurriyet News reported.

Addressing the EU, Erdoğan said: “You have never treated humanity honestly”.

“The EU needs to send a clear message to Turkey”.

“If the objective is to give a message to Turkey, messages are given by actions not by resolutions”, he said.

“It wouldn’t matter if all of you approved the (European Parliament) vote…”

Sinan Ulgen, a Turkish scholar at Carnegie Europe, a foreign-policy think tank in Brussels, said: “The EU finds itself devoid of a flexible response toward Turkey and is now contemplating the nuclear option, suspension of negotiations”.

North Africa Post’s news desk is composed of journalists and editors, who are constantly working to provide new and accurate stories to NAP readers. Europe is also facing the rise of populist political factions, such as France’s National Front, and others that oppose closer cooperation with Turkey.

In recent days, Turkish officials have raised the prospect of ending negotiations as Ankara bristles at what it perceives as a lack of support for its government in the aftermath of the coup attempt.

“We see the EU-Turkey agreement as a success for both sides”, Demmer said, adding that it is in the interests of both parties for the agreement to hold.

He further described Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim’s remarks on the refugee crisis as “a transparent threat” to the Europeans, explaining that Turkey can turn the “human floodgate” on again anytime it wants.

The deal has largely succeeded in bringing the numbers of people arriving from across the Aegean Sea down from a peak of over 2,000 people a day in 2015 to a current average of around 100 a day.

Turkey still hopes to win visa-free travel for its citizens to the European Union, part of an European Union promise in exchange for its help in keeping migrants away from Europe, although the chances of it winning that right by the end of this year seem distant.

“Let’s wait until the end of the year and then go to the people”, Erdoğan said in a speech in Ankara.

Turkey formally applied for an European Union member in 1987 and accession talks in 2005, even though Ankara’s aspirations to become part of the bloc dates back to the 1960s.

The assembly in Strasbourg, France, said however that it “remains committed to keep Turkey anchored to the European Union”.

Brussels agreed to give visa free travel for Turks once it carried out key reforms and give more aid to Turkey, in exchange for Ankara cutting the number of refugees to the Greek islands.