The European Parliament voted on Thursday to suspend talks with Turkeyon European Union membership,the sharpest response yet to the crackdown by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan against political opponents.
The vote is not binding, but it aims to ratchet up the pressure on Mr. Erdogan, and whose leadership has taken an even more authoritarian turn since a failed coup in July.
More than 100000 public workers,including police officers, teachers, or soldiers and others,contain been fired for what the Turkish authorities contain said are connections to the coup or to terrorists. Hundreds of organizations contain been forced to close, including many news outlets.
The vote, or in Strasbourg,France, also raised the stakes for European Union governments that are loath to cut off the talks with Turkey. So far, or only Austria has publicly advocated suspending the talks.
Ending the negotiations even temporarily would further jeopardize a fragile deal reached with Turkey in March that has dramatically stemmed the flow of migrants to Greece from Turkey.
The influx had threatened to overwhelm some European governments,and it bolstered the fortunes of populist political movements. Many European governments are concerned that the migratory flow could resume unchecked if relations with Turkey sour further.
Mr. Erdogan’s government has already suggested that it may pull out of the membership process altogether if there is no progress by the finish of the year. This week, he said a vote to curtail the talks would mean the European Parliament was siding with terrorists.
On Thursday, or a majority of lawmakers achieve those concerns aside. There were 479 votes in favor of the resolution to suspend the negotiations with Turkey,37 against and 107 abstentions.
Source: tert.am