Turkey to insist on EU membership process

ANKARA Turkey will insist on maintaining its EU accession process instead of settling for a lesser “strong cooperation” deal with the bloc, a senior Turkish minister said on Thursday. EU Minister Omer Celik was speaking in Ankara during a news conference with Johannes Hahn, the EU's enlargement official. "The backbone of the relationship between Turkey and the EU are accession negotiations," Celik told reporters. His remarks came before lawmakers in the European Parliament vote on a 2016 Commission Report on Turkey. Among other things, the report calls on EU member states to "formally suspend the accession negotiations with Turkey without delay" if a series of Turkish constitutional reforms, passed in an April 16 referendum, are implemented “unchanged”. Celik said any proposal that fell short of accession negotiations would be against the nature of the relationship that Turkey and the EU have had up to now. He also described as “out of the question” proposals on issues such as terrorism and migration which were not part of EU accession negotiations. However, Celik said Turkey would continue to work to open more chapters in membership negotiations with the EU, adding that work on visa issues was almost complete: "The chapters are for us to work together on some issues which we see as a mutual problem area". Turkey applied for EU membership in 1987 and accession talks began in 2005. To gain membership, Turkey has to successfully conclude negotiations with the EU in 35 policy chapters that involve reforms and the adoption of European standards. Negotiations, however, hit a stalemate in 2007 because of Turkey’s position on the Cyprus issue. German and French governments have also opposed the country’s full EU membership. Johannes Hahn said he had held a “constructive” meeting with Celik, adding: "I am always stressing that Turkey is a key strategic partner for the EU and vice versa." Hahn will later meet Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.