Turkey’s foreign minister said his country’s accession process to the EU should not be a part of the campaigning leading up to the British referendum on whether to remain in the bloc.
Speaking at a news conference in Ankara on Wednesday, Mevlut Cavusoglu said it was “wrong to suggest Turkey will arrive and become a burden on Europe,” AP reported.
“It is not right that the issue of when Turkey will become a member of the EU is used in the Brexit campaign. Turkey has never been a burden on the EU,” Mevlut Cavusoglu said during a news conference in Ankara.
He said Turkey would like Britain to stay in the EU for a stronger bloc.
His remarks are the latest sign of tensions between Turkey and the UK over David Cameron’s insistence that Turkey should not expect to join the EU until the year 3000, The Guardian reported.
During the campaign Cameron has put various time-frames on Turkey’s possible membership of the EU but for diplomatic reasons has refused to declare whether the UK would use its veto to block Turkey.
Although the EU has said it will shortly open talks on the next chapter of the lengthy Turkish accession process, the move is seen as largely symbolic due to the overwhelming opposition to Turkish membership across the European Union. It takes only one EU member state to block an accession.
The EU opened membership negotiations with Muslim-majority Turkey in 2005. Turkey’s accession talks have been a topic of debate in Britain ahead of the vote.
Even if Britain chose not to veto Turkish membership, a host of other European countries say they are willing to reject Turkey. The French Socialist government, for instance, has said it would not agree to the Turkish membership of the EU without holding a referendum.
