29/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - Prime Minister Erdogan again threatens to break off negotiations with EU. During a speech made on Turkish television on 24 January, the Turkish prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, threatened to abandon negotiations with the EU and reorient his country towards the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which includes Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Asked about his country's EU candidacy, he said that he was thinking of abandoning it in favour of the SCO. “When things are going so badly, as the prime minister of 75 million people, you obviously have to look at alternatives. This is why I recently told Mr Putin (president of Russia) to take us into the Shanghai Five. Do this and we will bid the EU farewell and leave it. What's behind all these blockages?” He added that the Shanghai Five was better and more powerful and Turkey shared common values with them. Erdogan also criticised the EU for not having wished to include a Muslim country in it (Turkey, however, is a secular country according to its constitution). (CG/transl.fl)