Thank you very much Mevlüt [Çavuşoğlu], Ömer [Çelik],
all,
First of all, let me say
- as the Ministers mentioned - it is exactly because Turkey is a candidate
country and a very important partner for the European Union that it is so
important to have these occasions of, as we call it, High Level Political
Dialogue, but mainly a frank, open, constructive, respectful exchanges on all
the issues that are so important for the Turkish people and for the European
Union’s people.
For Commissioner
Johannes Hahn, myself, on behalf of the European Union, this is a very
important occasion, first of all to express our full solidarity and sympathy to
the Turkish people, to the institutions of Turkey, the deepest respect for how
the people of Turkey, the institutions came together – also involving the
opposition - to defend their democracy against the attempted coup.
I was myself I think the
first in those dramatic hours to communicate publicly the need to strongly
defend and support democratically elected institutions of the country. Because
for the European Union one thing is and will always be absolutely clear: in our
world and even more so in our region, in the European territory, there is no
space for any attempt of military coup whatsoever. So our support to reaction
that the Turkish institutions altogether and the Turkish people had in the very
first minutes was the strongest possible one.
And it was very
important for us that we not only expressed our support today to the legitimate
and democratically elected institutions and people of Turkey, we will in the
afternoon visit the Parliament and meet with all the political parties. We also
had a very in-depth discussion on how to make sure that defending democracy is
done and is pursued with the full commitment to democracy, human rights and
rule of law, as the Ministers mentioned and we appreciate in particular the
cooperation we can have with the Council of Europe in this respect. I am
obviously in constant contact with Council of Europe Secretary General
Thorbjørn Jagland, but also with the Estonian Presidency of the Council of
Ministers, I talked to the Foreign Minister just before travelling here on how
we can accompany this reflection, that is a complicated one but something that
is for us absolutely essential.
The main message of our
meeting today that was a very positive one is, first of all, a strong
recommitment to dialogue and common work on all strands of our cooperation.
Work has never stopped.
Work has kept going on all different files we have in our bilateral relations,
but also now on policy and regional cooperation, and work will continue with
this approach of looking forward, being constructive and being concentrated on what
are the common challenges and the common interests of our people. We share a
very complicated geopolitical position, we share a set of challenges, but also
we have some common interests that we can pursue together.
So we decided that our
work will go on in all fields in a very constructive way: on visa
liberalisation, on the upgrade of customs union, and including also on our
support to Turkey in its efforts in welcoming a huge number of Syrian refugees,
in particular focusing on the education of children.
We have also tackled
some of the issues that are of concern and central for the European Union, that
we also had the chance to discuss with Minister Çelik exactly one week ago in
Bratislava with all the 28 European Union Member States – issues, as I said,
related to rule of law and in particular the way forward how we can work
together in this field.
We also discussed at
length, as the Minister mentioned, the Kurdish issue: we, in the European Union
and in each and every of our Member States, consider the PKK as a terrorist
organisation. Significant action has been taken against the PKK in the European
Union and its Member States in the recent years and months. We believe all
violence and terrorist attacks have to be stopped, and arms laid down and a
political process started. And the European Union obviously will be ready to
accompany this process.
We had a very intense
exchange also on all bilateral issues. On some of them Commissioner Hahn will
go more in details. I could say that the key element on which we agreed to
work, our common guidelines, is that we talk more to each other and a little
bit less about each other, showing full respect, reciprocal respect, being
absolutely clear on what we agree on and what could be elements where we need
to discuss more, and most of all in a constructive way, always.
We also discussed the
situation in Syria: we agreed that there is no military solution to the
conflict in Syria, that only a political solution with the transition will
bring peace to the country. We agreed that we can work together trying to
achieve a cease-fire in the near future, we agreed on the basic principles that
should guide the future of Syria: the territorial integrity of the country, the
unity of the country, the inclusion of all parts of society in Syria, the
protection of all minorities, the constitution of a non-sectarian country. We
will continue to work together in this respect, with Minister Çavuşoğlu in
particular, we will have further occasions to meet in the near future and
discuss ways in which the European Union and Turkey can work together to try
and facilitate the solution for the Syrian conflict.
Thank you.
Questions and Answers
On visa liberalisation
and your question: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the European Union
Presidents Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker had a very constructive exchange
at the margins of the G20 in China on this.
I would like to say a
word on the issue of Cyprus because we discussed this at length during the meeting
today and I believe and I can say that the European Union and Turkey have a
common interest in seeing the Cyprus issue solved.
We both can contribute
enormously to this solution, we both want this to happen and I believe that we
both believe that this could happen now in the near future. So this is why
maybe this expectation was somehow raised in this framework, because indeed we
see a window of more than hope for this issue to be solved in a proper way in
the coming months.
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