After the European Commission released the 2016 progress report on Turkey Wednesday morning, top European Union officials mentioned a possible pause of Turkey's accession to the bloc but their remarks received no back-stepping from Ankara.Turkey's long quest to join the EU is likely to end in failure unless Ankara reverses its fight against the perpetrators of the military coup attempt, the bloc's top official in charge of ties with Turkey said."Turkey is an EU candidate and that means they have to accept that we apply higher standards... If they don't want to accept it, they have to face the consequences," said European Commissioner Johannes Hahn, without touching upon Turkey's criticisms that Europe is a safe haven for the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) and PKK terrorists.The European Parliament's Turkey rapporteur Kati Piri also called for the suspension of Turkey's EU bid."The EU has to immediately freeze the accession talks," Piri stated.During a televised interview shortly after the EU statements, presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın warned the bloc, saying that the EU would have to suffer the consequences if it decides to halt the negotiations."The EU is mistaken if it thinks it can subdue Turkey with such a decision; it does not understand the social dynamics of Turkey or the region," he said, adding that the EU applies double standards when the subject is Turkey.He said that while European officials only bothered to visit Turkey nearly a month after the failed July 15 coup attempt, they were very swift to respond when pro-PKK deputies from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) were detained as part of an ongoing terrorism probe.Both the European Commission report and EU officials' remarks drew attention to Turkey's unity against the FETÖ coup attempt and that the plotters must be brought to justice.However, there was no mention of the cult that was behind the coup. Without mentioning the strong FETÖ infiltration of state institutions and how the cult members ruined the Turkish judiciary and bureaucracy, the dismissal of FETÖ and PKK suspects and detentions had also been harshly criticized in the report.Turkey's accession, a member of the NATO Western military alliance, has been a slow process since talks were formally launched in 2005, 18 years after it first applied to join.