The EU on Monday said it failed to reach any “concrete solutions or compromises” with Turkey in talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeking to repair their tattered relations.
Erdogan held a working dinner with European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Bulgaria, with a litany of issues clouding their discussions, including EU alarm at Erdogan’s crackdown on perceived opponents following a coup attempt in 2016, the arrest of journalists, Turkey’s military operations against Kurds in northern Syria and squabbling over Ankara’s deal to halt the flow of refugees into Europe.
This has all whipped up an increasingly acrimonious war of words and made Turkey’s prospects of joining the EU — an objective that Erdogan insisted earlier on Monday that Turkey still pursues — appear even more remote.
However, despite hopes for a breakthrough at the summit in the Black Sea resort of Varna, Tusk said they made little tangible headway.
“In terms of concrete solutions, we did not reach a concrete compromise today, but I still hope it will be possible in the future,” Tusk told a joint news conference.
Improved relations would depend on progress on issues, including the rule of law and press freedom, as well as Syria, Tusk said.
However, Erdogan struck a more optimistic tone, telling reporters: “We hope that we have left a very difficult period behind in Turkey-EU relations.”
“We don’t want rambling or unfair criticisms on sensitive issues like the fight against terror. We expect strong support,” he added.
The summit was one of “mixed feelings, but not mixed messages,” Juncker said, adding: “It was a good meeting, because as this is the normal principle between big democracies, we were able to talk in all frankness and openness.”
Tensions rose further last week after EU leaders condemned Turkey’s “illegal actions” toward Greece and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea.
Ankara hit back at the “unacceptable comments” and said the EU had lost its objectivity on Cyprus, which is divided between the Greek-majority internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus and the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north.
A statement on Thursday last week by the 28 EU members meeting in Brussels condemned Turkey over Ankara’s arrest of two Greek soldiers and its promise to prevent the Greek Cypriot government from exploring for oil and gas.
“For as long as the EU does not take a fair attitude, it will not have any contribution to the solution of the Cyprus issue,” Erdogan said.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
RSS