The Foreign Ministry criticized the European Parliament 2022 report on Türkiye for being full of unfair accusations and prejudices based on disinformation from anti-Türkiye circles.
In a statement released Thursday, the ministry said the report shows biased perspectives regarding the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus issues and does not align with historical or legal truths.
The ministry’s statement was issued in response to the EP’s report, which was endorsed in a General Assembly session on Wednesday.
The ministry noted that EP members have become enslaved by populist policies and are far from developing a correct strategic approach for Europe and the region and is a reflection of the EU body’s lack of vision and shallowness amid the ongoing opportunities to revive Türkiye-EU relations. The statement continued by saying that the EP report disregards the fact that Türkiye has the potential to make the bloc a global power in the face of ongoing challenges, including security, energy, climate change, migration and economic problems.
The ministry statement continued by saying that Türkiye hopes the new European Parliament after the elections will act in a neutral, rational and constructive way. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held a phone call with Oliver Varhelyi, EU commissioner in charge of enlargement, who recently paid a visit to the country and met Fidan ahead of the release of the report. The ministry said the two discussed EU-Türkiye relations. The EU report, prepared by rapporteur Nacho Sanchez Amor, is full of accusations toward Türkiye, claiming imprisonment of journalists and politicians to human rights violations, and “democratic backsliding.” In that sense, the report is not very different from its earlier editions.
Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç said in a post on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, that the report ignores the current efforts for reform in Türkiye as well as recent developments in human rights and the rule of law. Tunç said the report is “far from being objective,” is not based on data and is “unfair, unfounded and full of delusions.”
“This report does not contribute to the positive agenda between Türkiye and the EU,” he added.
Türkiye recently sought to revive its stalled membership process with the EU. The country has the most extended history with the union and the most prolonged negotiation process. The country signed an association agreement with the EU’s predecessor in 1964, the European Economic Community (EEC), which is usually regarded as a first step to eventually becoming a candidate. Applying for official candidacy in 1987, Türkiye had to wait until 1999 to be granted the status of a candidate country. For the start of the negotiations, however, Türkiye had to wait for another six years, until 2005, a uniquely long process compared with other candidates.
Recently, Fidan stated it was “strategic blindness” to hinder Türkiye’s EU membership process. “It is essential to have a visionary view of Turkish-EU relations in the new era and revive the process with the perspective of full membership. This “blindness” cost Türkiye over five decades, as the process adhered to a course based on “need” for each other rather than joint strategic goals, and trust for each other for both parties has long been low.
Although Türkiye maintains good relations with most EU countries, it faces obstacles due to wider support for the Greek Cypriot side of Cyprus and Greece, which blocks the bid of Türkiye over a dispute on maritime borders and Türkiye’s support for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) not recognized by other countries.
The TRNC also dismissed the report, deeming it irrelevant due to the legislative body’s biased stance on Cyprus. “As long as the EP (European Parliament) persists in its wrong and biased attitude toward the Cyprus issue and the parties in Cyprus, reports and decisions of the EP are null and void for us,” the TRNC’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement.
The statement emphasized that the European Parliament approved a report that ignored the existence and inherent rights of the Turkish Cypriot people and entirely reflected the views of the Greek Cypriot administration. “The insistence on the tried and failed federation model in the report ... (and) an approach that blames Türkiye are manifestations of the EP’s detachment from the realities on the island and its blindly pro-Greek stance,” the ministry added. The ministry also said that the coastal area of Maraş, or Varosha in Greek, belongs to the TRNC and criticized the European Parliament’s stance on the Pile-Yiğitler road as “unacceptable.”
“The Turkish Cypriot side must respect the U.N. mission’s mandate in the buffer zone and refrain from any actions that escalate tensions,” the EP report said. Türkiye says the construction of the Pile-Yigitler road is a “humanitarian project” aiming to facilitate the direct access of TRNC citizens in the village of Pile to their homeland. The Greek Cypriot administration and the U.N. are opposed to the project.
