EU should decide if it wants Turkey: Foreign minister

By Faruk Zorlu

ANKARA (AA) - The EU should decide whether it wants to see Turkey in the union or not, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday.

"If the European Union doesn't want to have us, they have to give the decision," Cavusoglu told a news conference after the 4th Visegrad Group (V4)+Turkey Foreign Ministers Meeting in Slovakia.

"But it's not only about the reform, or it's not only about the benchmarks or criteria that Turkey can meet or Turkey has not met," he said.

Turkey has repeatedly complained of political hurdles, discrimination, and double standards standing in the way of its joining the EU.

During the meeting, Cavusoglu, Slovakia's Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak, Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek, Poland's Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz, and Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto exchanged views on Turkey-EU relations and discussed recent international developments.

Turkey applied for EU membership in 1987 and accession talks began in 2005.

But negotiations stalled in 2007 due to the objections of the Greek Cypriot administration on the divided island of Cyprus as well as opposition from Germany and France.