On Tuesday 18 July, Turkey's Foreign Affairs Minister Ömer Çelik said that while Turkey had the responsibility of nurturing its relations with the EU, the EU had the same responsibility.
"The EU also has the responsibility of nurturing this relationship. We want a sincere attitude to respond to our sincere attitudes", he told the EU-Turkey joint consultative committee of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) that was meeting in Brussels.
The Turkish minister stated that his country's end goal was to join the EU. "Our objective is to become a full member. Any other form of cooperation does not interest us. We are not ready to accept anything else, so the negotiations have the same basis as the discussions between the EU and Turkey", Çelik stated. He called on the EU to "re-examine its position in relation to Turkey's accession negotiations".
Once again, Çelik called for the opening of negotiation chapters 23 (judicial apparatus and fundamental rights) and 24 (freedom, security and justice), which are blocked by the Republic of Cyprus. "The EU has greatly criticised Turkey on the subject of press freedom and fundamental rights. We are full of good will to cooperate, but to do this, Chapters 23 and 24 must be opened. If we did not want fundamental rights or justice to be addressed, why would we ask for these chapters to be opened?", he said. "It would be unfair for the EU not to do it and to continue to criticise Turkey day and night", he added. There are currently 16 chapters open and one provisionally closed, while 14 chapters are blocked by the Council or by Cyprus.
Çelik also said that the updating of the customs union, which is "an imperative" would go hand in hand with the accession negotiations, and was not "an alternative option to accession". He said he would like to have "real guarantees to enable [his] citizens to travel freely". "Some countries, which are not candidates, have benefitted from a visa-free regime, while Turkey is still faced with obstacles. This is not acceptable", he said.
On behalf of the Commission, the deputy director general of DG NEAR, Maciej Popowski, said he thought "the EU and Turkey needed each other more than ever" in order to confront the challenges of terrorism, migration or the global situation.
Meanwhile, EESC President Georges Dassis said that "the situation in Turkey is not encouraging as regards the respect of fundamental rights". "Certain actions in Turkey following the attempted coup run counter to the fundamental values shared by the EU. Principles like the separation of powers, the respect of fundamental freedoms, the presumption of innocence or the independence of the media are founding values of the EU and are crucial for ensuring values such as democracy and human rights", he said. Dassis nevertheless said he hoped accession negotiations might "resume as quickly as possible". "We hope we will once again see a Turkey that is totally democratic, open to the future and respectful of all freedoms, the rule of law and the separation of powers", he concluded. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)