Source: http://ift.tt/eKERsB - Friday, December 26, 2014
Istanbul (AFP) - Turkey's leaders are committed to EU membership and still aim to play in the "first division" of Europe despite a bitter row over a crackdown on the opposition, a top adviser to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said. Turkey's aspirations to join the EU received a serious setback when the latest police swoop on opposition media linked to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's number one foe, Fethullah Gulen, led to an angry slanging match between Ankara and Brussels. Etyen Mahcupyan, a Turkish-Armenian who was named chief adviser to Davutoglu in November, blamed the dispute on a lack of understanding about Turkey in the West. But he told AFP in an interview that despite the sometimes tough rhetoric, Ankara had no intention of giving up on its decades-old bid to join the 28-member bloc. "AK Party (the ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP) absolutely, 100 percent, wants to join the EU and demonstrate its own power in Europe," he said. "An enthusiastic and self-confident Recep Tayyip Erdogan cannot dream of a Turkey which plays in the second division. He wants to play in the first league, but as equal partners." Mahcupyan, however, criticised the West's "negative" approach and what he said was its failure to understand the government's war against the Gulen movement, which Erdogan has accused of orchestrating a plot to bring him down when he was prime minister. "The Western world is unaware of what's going on in Turkey.
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Istanbul (AFP) - Turkey's leaders are committed to EU membership and still aim to play in the "first division" of Europe despite a bitter row over a crackdown on the opposition, a top adviser to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said. Turkey's aspirations to join the EU received a serious setback when the latest police swoop on opposition media linked to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's number one foe, Fethullah Gulen, led to an angry slanging match between Ankara and Brussels. Etyen Mahcupyan, a Turkish-Armenian who was named chief adviser to Davutoglu in November, blamed the dispute on a lack of understanding about Turkey in the West. But he told AFP in an interview that despite the sometimes tough rhetoric, Ankara had no intention of giving up on its decades-old bid to join the 28-member bloc. "AK Party (the ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP) absolutely, 100 percent, wants to join the EU and demonstrate its own power in Europe," he said. "An enthusiastic and self-confident Recep Tayyip Erdogan cannot dream of a Turkey which plays in the second division. He wants to play in the first league, but as equal partners." Mahcupyan, however, criticised the West's "negative" approach and what he said was its failure to understand the government's war against the Gulen movement, which Erdogan has accused of orchestrating a plot to bring him down when he was prime minister. "The Western world is unaware of what's going on in Turkey.from Top News on RSS Feeds http://ift.tt/1EpiPmN
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