“IT WOULD BE A GREAT CONTRADICTION NOT TO RECOGNIZE TURKEY AS EUROPEAN”

In the framework of his official visit to Brussels, Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis delivered a conference titled “Turkey in Europe” in the Institute for European Studies of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Minister Bagis said that some people in the EU who were opposed to Turkey’s EU bid gave different reasons for their opposition; and added that actually those people were concerned of being overshadowed by Turkey in the EU.

Bagis highlighted that they even called the Ottoman Empire as “the sick man of Europe” and that today it would be a great contradiction not to recognize Turkey as European in its most powerful, prosperous and the democratic period.

Minister Bagis emphasized that people who opposed Turkey's membership also opposed the dreams of ten million young people in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other Arab countries who started the Arab Spring longing for human rights and democracy inspired by Turkey.

Bagis also mentioned terrorism, reminding that terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was on the EU's list of terrorist organizations and therefore all EU Member States were obligated to recognize PKK as a terrorist organization and to combat against it. "While the PKK kills Turkish people with bullets, it is killing European youth with drugs. Because the terrorist organization PKK has the control of the Europe's largest drug and human trafficking network" said Bagis, asking for cooperation on combat against terrorism for the security of European cities.

Within the framework of the Brussels program, Minister Bagis had also meetings with the European Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Füle and European Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Cioloş.