Turkey confirms new talks on EU membership as Erdogan proposes referendum

Angrily lashing out at the bloc’s treatment of Ankara, president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey could hold a referendum along the lines of the UK vote.

Ankara // Turkey on Thursday confirmed it would hold new membership talks with the European Union next week and would pressure the bloc to “keep its promises” over visa-free travel.

The announcement came as president Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested Ankara could hold its own referendum on whether or not to continue the long-stalled EU accession process.

Foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he would hold talks with EU Commission vice president Frans Timmermans on June 30, which would also be attended by justice minister Bekir Bozdag and EU affairs minister Omer Celik.

“We will go to Brussels to meet the EU Commission vice president and discuss the stalling on the visa exemption dossier, on the occasion of the opening of a new negotiating chapter,” he said.

EU member states will meet on the same day to agree to open a new negotiating chapter with Turkey on finance and budget affairs in its membership bid, sources in Brussels said on Wednesday.

The question of Ankara’s accession came up in Britain’s bitterly-fought EU referendum campaign on whether to stay or go.

Angrily lashing out at the bloc’s treatment of Ankara, Mr Erdogan said Turkey could hold a referendum along the lines of the UK vote.

His comments were the first time the Turkish strongman had raised the prospect of holding a referendum on Turkey’s EU bid. He had previously repeatedly insisted that full membership of the European Union was Turkey’s strategic aim.

“We can stand up and ask the people just like the British are doing,” Mr Erdogan said on Wednesday in Istanbul, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.

“We would ask ‘Do we continue the negotiations with the European Union or do we end it?’ If the people say ‘continue’, then we would carry on,” Mr Erdogan said.

A deal agreed in March between Turkey and the EU had been expected to calm tensions and give new momentum to the Turkish membership bid.

But the EU says it cannot grant Turkey the key sweetener of visa-free travel to the passport-free Schengen zone if it does not narrow the scope of its antiterror laws, something Ankara has refused to do as it battles Kurdish militants.

* Agence France-Presse