Dutch Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Kati Piri held a press conference in Strasbourg on Wednesday, as the parliament’s voted to formally suspend the accession talks with Turkey.
A total of 370 MEPs voted in favour of suspending Turkey’s EU accession talks. From them, 109 voted against, while 143 abstained from voting.
In the lead up to the vote, Piri said things had gone “from bad to worse” for Turkey in recent years. She cited the post-coup crackdown on journalists and opposition members in 2016, the 2017 constitutional reforms, as well as the police’s use of rubber bullets against women during the 2019 International Women’s Day protests in the country.
‘”The European Parliament has tried over the years to put pressure on the Turkish government but our calls so far have fallen on deaf ears both in Ankara, and to be honest, also within EU capitals. It seems that our European leaders only react when European nationals are involved,” said Piri, who works as the Turkish rapporteur of the European Parliament.
Commenting the vote, Piri said she was against the proposal to suspend accession talk. “I truly hope that one day in the future, that door will be able to open again, when Turkey is a different country than it is today,” she said.
“The question is rather, whether the European Union is willing to come up with a strategy trying to prevent Turkey’s further drift away from the West and to maintain a connection with the democrats in Turkey. And my assessment is that so far our European leaders have bitterly failed in doing so,” she added.