[RT] ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
will say goodbye to the EU if it refuses to "open new chapters" on its accession into the bloc, President Erdogan has stated. It comes after an EU commissioner said Ankara’s actions and policies have made it impossible to meet EU criteria to join.
"From now on there is no option other than opening the chapters you have not yet opened. If you do not open [them], goodbye," Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him...
said at a Tuesday ceremony to mark his return to the ruling AK Party, as quoted by Rooters.
His comments came after European Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who oversees EU membership bids, told Rooters that Turkey’s limits on press freedom, mass jailing, and diminishing civil rights have made it almost impossible for Turkey to meet EU joining criteria.
Hahn said on Tuesday that EU rules are "not negotiable," and that the bloc will not put aside the "human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
situation" in discussions with Ankara.
"Everybody’s clear that, currently at least, Turkey is moving away from a European perspective," Hahn said.
"There is no version of Turkish democracy. There is only democracy. Turkish people have the same rights to live in freedom as Europeans do."
He stated that the focus of the relationship between the bloc and Ankara "has to be something else... we have to see what could be done in the future, to see if we can restart some kind of cooperation."