Turkey EU minister hits out at 'visionless' MEPs' vote

By Meltem Bulur and Zuhal Demirci

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's EU minister on Monday described as “visionless” a decision by the European Parliament to call for a freeze in Turkish accession talks.

Omer Celik was speaking in the Turkish capital Ankara at the 35th Turkey-EU Joint Consultative Committee meeting.

Celik said the European Parliament was supposed to be in solidarity with Turkey following the July 15 coup attempt, which left 248 people martyred and nearly 2,200 wounded.

On Nov. 24, European lawmakers voted to approve a non-binding motion to freeze EU-membership talks with Turkey.

The move came as a response to post-coup investigations in Turkey and measures taken to fight the PKK and the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO).

"Moves such as the European Parliament's visionless decision will go down in history as marginal decisions... In the future we should cooperate more against big challenges," Celik said.

He added: "The Turkish people rewrote the history of democracy that day [July 15]. This was supposed to be protected."

FETO is accused of orchestrating the coup plot as well as being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through infiltrating Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and the judiciary.