MEPs issue further calls for suspension of Turkey-EU talks

S&D group Chair Gianni Pittella has called for the immediate “freezing” of accession talks between the EU and Turkey.

Gianni Pittella | Photo credit: European Parliament audiovisual

By Martin Banks

Martin Banks is a senior reporter at the Parliament Magazine

22 Nov 2016


The Italian MEP said such a move was necessary due to a “worrying” slump in human rights in the country.

He said, “While the picture is very worrying this need only be a temporary stoppage, but the rule of law and democracy have to be restored in Turkey before accession negotiations can recommence.”

The deputy, who was speaking at a news conference in Strasbourg on Tuesday, said 130,000 people had been arrested, many without charge, since the failed coup earlier this year and 113 judges and magistrates imprisoned.

“We are calling on the Turkish regime to address our concerns about the rule of law and democracy. The door to possible EU accession is still open but it should be closed until we receive guarantees about these issues.

“The regime has to move back toward the European family and things like the rule of law and democracy are untouchable. This message must be understood.”

His call comes after the EPP group last week called for accession talks with Ankara to be suspended.

Elsewhere, MEPs have hit out after the Turkish authorities prevented a Socialist parliamentary delegation from visiting opposition MPs in a Turkish prison.

The delegation was in Turkey to visit opposition leader Selahattin Demirtaş who is in prison, in the north-western town of Edirne.

The delegation was led by PES president and Bulgarian MEP Sergei Stanishev.

The Turkish police, he said, tried to prevent any contact between the delegation and the media gathered around the prison, but then allowed the improvised press point to take place.

Stanishev said this week’s plenary debate in Strasbourg on the future of EU-Turkey access negotiations should discuss “the limited scope for Turkey’s accession in the light of its dramatic violations of human rights detentions of legally elected representatives of the Turkish people in the Turkish Parliament".

MEPs, national MPs and other officials from Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden are also with the PES delegation to Turkey.

Meanwhile, UK MEP Julie Ward has also complained about being denied access to see an imprisoned activist in Turkey.

The Socialist deputy was attempting to see Leyla Birlik, one of 10 HDP deputies who have been imprisoned by the Turkish state in the last three weeks following the crackdown on political opposition.

Birlik is a Turkish MP representing Sirnak in southern Turkey and is currently in a prison near Istanbul.

On Tuesday, Ward said, “Despite the best attempts of all concerned we were denied access.

“On arrival at the prison our group were subject to intimidation and harassment by the military police at the prison entrance. We were asked to move at least one kilometre away from the prison and not to return until we had evidence of official state permission to make a visit.

“Other visitors arriving on a public bus to visit inmates were also asked to exit the prison campus and had to do so on foot as the bus had left.”

Ward added, “Leyla's health is very poor due to her liver disease, complicated by ongoing treatment for probable thyroid cancer. Her family have had limited contact with her since her extra-judicial detention and only two of her brothers have been able to visit for one hour each.

“I remain deeply concerned for Leyla and all the imprisoned HDP deputies as well as the 39 co-mayors, 142 journalists, thousands of judges, lawyers, academics, teachers, public sector workers and community and voluntary sector (NGO) workers who have been arrested and detained since July 15.

“These numbers continue to change as the situation in Turkey develops. My observations lead me to the bleak conclusion that Turkey is quite obviously becoming a fascist state under the power of one man, President Erdogan, who is waging war on his own fellow countrymen in a systematic deconstruction of democracy.”

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