{"id":30590,"date":"2016-11-25T00:34:59","date_gmt":"2016-11-25T00:34:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/turkey-dismisses-eu-parliament-vote-to-freeze\/"},"modified":"2016-11-25T00:34:56","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T00:34:56","slug":"turkey-dismisses-eu-parliament-vote-to-freeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/turkey-dismisses-eu-parliament-vote-to-freeze\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey dismisses EU Parliament vote to freeze talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Ankara criticises vote that calls for a temporary halt to its EU membership talks over the response to failed coup bid.}<\/p>\n

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has dismissed a European Parliament vote calling for a temporary freeze to Ankara’s membership talks with the EU as “insignificant”.<\/p>\n

Of the 623 politicians present for Thursday’s vote in France’s Strasbourg, 479 were in favour of a halt in negotiations over Turkey’s “disproportionate” crackdown following July’s failed coup attempt. Thirty-seven abstained against and 107 abstained.<\/p>\n

Yet, the vote is non-binding and EU governments are unlikely to take heed.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, Yildirim said the outcome had no value and urged EU leaders to speak out against what he termed a “lack of vision”.<\/p>\n

“The EU should understand and decide whether it wants to shape its future vision with or without Turkey,” he was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.<\/p>\n

Mehmet Simsek, Turkey’s deputy prime minister, also criticised the decision, describing it on Twitter as “populist” and “counter-productive.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Carl Bildt, a former prime minister of Sweden, said the vote showed a “populist short-term rather than strategic long-term approach to relations which Turkey”.<\/p>\n

The decision comes amid heightened tensions between Turkey in the aftermath of the coup bid on July 15 – since then, almost 37,000 suspects have been placed under arrest, and tens of thousands have lost their jobs.<\/p>\n

Politicians voting in Strasbourg said the parliament “strongly condemns the disproportionate repressive measures taken in Turkey since the failed military coup attempt”.<\/p>\n

Last week, top EU politicians cancelled a visit to Turkey after Ankara refused to see one member of European parliament because of her criticism of the government’s response to the coup attempt.<\/p>\n

Ankara blames US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former Erdogan ally who has been living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, for the coup – a charge he denies.<\/p>\n

Gulen’s movement, which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refers to as a “terrorist” organisation, runs schools, charities and businesses internationally.<\/p>\n

In comments published last weekend, Erdogan said Turkey should not be fixated on joining the EU and floated the idea of joining up with Russia and China in a Eurasian security group.<\/p>\n

\"Erdogan<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Ankara criticises vote that calls for a temporary halt to its EU membership talks over the response to failed coup bid.} Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has dismissed a European Parliament vote calling for a temporary freeze to Ankara’s membership talks with the EU as “insignificant”. Of the 623 politicians present for Thursday’s vote in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-30590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30590"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=30590"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=30590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}