Erdoğan threatens to ‘part ways’ from EU after critical European Parliament report – POLITICO

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday slammed a report from the European Parliament on the country’s EU accession talks and threatened to “part ways” from the bloc.

Questioned by journalists about the report, Erdoğan said that “the EU is trying to break away from Turkey,” according to Turkish state media Anadolu Agency.

“We will make our evaluations against these developments and if necessary, we can part ways with the EU,” Erdoğan said ahead of a trip to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The European Parliament report, adopted this week in Strasbourg, said talks over Ankara’s accession to the bloc should not be resumed in current circumstances, voicing the EU’s concerns about human rights and rule of law violations. Instead, European lawmakers advocated finding “a parallel and realistic framework” for relations between Brussels and Ankara.

“We have recently seen a renewed interest from the Turkish government in reviving the EU accession process,” said the lead lawmaker on the file, Spanish Socialist Nacho Sánchez Amor, upon adoption of the report on Wednesday.

“This will not happen because of geopolitical bargaining, but only when the Turkish authorities show real interest in stopping the continuing backsliding in fundamental freedoms and rule of law in the country,” Sánchez Amor said.

Tukrey-EU ties have deteriorated amid Erdoğan’s increasingly autocratic behavior following a failed coup attempt in 2016.

Talks over Turkey’s accession to the bloc have stagnated for years. In July, however, EU foreign ministers agreed to move forward with relations.