Türkiye - EU ties crucial for region, says Turkish vice president

By Muhammed Enes Calli

ISTANBUL (AA) — Türkiye-EU relations are of vital importance not only for Türkiye and the EU, but also for the region, Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz said on Thursday.

"Within the scope of the meeting, we exchanged views on global and regional developments, especially Türkiye-EU relations," Yilmaz said on X, formerly Twitter, after hosting Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut, head of the EU delegation in Türkiye and the accompanying delegation at the Presidential Complex in Ankara.

"Türkiye-EU relations are deep-rooted, multidimensional and vital not only for Türkiye and the EU, but also for our region," he said, adding that the Russia-Ukraine war had shown the "most concrete reflection of this situation."

Türkiye thinks it is crucial to eliminate the political obstacles to its relations with the EU as soon as possible, to regain momentum in relations and to keep the structural dialogue mechanisms open continuously, he added.

He said updating the Customs Union between the two sides and accelerating dialogue on visa liberalization were "important agenda items" in doing so.

Yilmaz added that Ankara sees enhancement and expansion of close EU-Türkiye financial cooperation as an essential element of the EU accession process.

"Our mutual cooperation with the EU will open up new opportunities in areas such as green transformation, digitalization, sustainable urban transport and clean energy."

He also thanked the EU for its solidarity in the wake of twin devastating earthquakes that hit southern Türkiye on Feb. 6

"We would like to see the rapid delivery of the aid pledged by the EU at the International Donors' Conference on March 20," he said.

More than 50,000 people were killed by earthquakes with magnitudes 7.7 and 7.6 that rocked the Turkish cities of Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Elazig, Hatay, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye, and Sanliurfa.

The earthquakes have also affected around 14 million people in Türkiye and thousands of others in northern Syria.