The Jim Bakker Show

Turkish leader’s security officers charged with assault in Washington

The Turkish flag flies over the the Turkish Ambassador's residence in Washington, U.S., June 15, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Tom Ramstack

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors have charged a dozen Turkish security and police officers with assault after an attack on protesters in Washington during Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to the U.S. capital last month, officials said on Thursday.

The May 16 skirmish, caught on video, left nine protesters injured outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence and further strained ties at a time when the NATO allies are in sharp disagreement over policy in Syria.

The charges against some members of Erdogan’s security detail send a clear message that the United States “does not tolerate individuals who use intimidation and violence to stifle freedom of speech and legitimate political expression,” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement.

Turkey condemned the charges and said the Turkish citizens, who left the country with Erdogan, should not be held responsible for the incident.

“This decision taken by U.S. authorities is wrong, biased and lacks legal basis,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “The brawl in front of the Turkish ambassador’s residence was caused by the failure of local security authorities to take necessary measures.”

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert would not say on Thursday whether an extradition request would be made.

The security officers are no longer protected by the immunity extended to them during Erdogan’s recent visit, the State Department said.

“We will weigh additional actions,” Nauert told reporters.

Washington officials announcing the charges, which were filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, described the treatment of the protesters as an attack on U.S. values. Some of the protesters were associated with the Armenian National Committee of America and accuse Erdogan of running a politically repressive government.

A video posted online showed men in dark suits chasing protesters and punching and kicking them as Washington police struggled to intervene.

“If they attempt to enter the United States, they will be arrested,” Metropolitan Police Department Chief Peter Newsham said of the security officers charged in the case.

Newsham said there was no probable cause to arrest Erdogan, who watched the confrontation unfold from a nearby car.

Eighteen people have now been charged in the incident, including two Canadians and four Americans, according to prosecutors.

Two men were arrested on Wednesday. Sinan Narin of Virginia faces a charge of felony aggravated assault and misdemeanor assault, and Eyup Yildirim of New Jersey faces two charges of felony assault and a misdemeanor assault charge.

(Reporting by Tom Ramstack; Additional reporting by Mohammad Zargham in Washington, Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara and David Dolan in Istanbul; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Andrew Hay and Peter Cooney)

Thousands rally in Turkey after opposition lawmaker jailed

Enis Berberoglu, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), arrives at the Justice Palace, the Caglayan courthouse, to attend a trial in Istanbul, Turkey March 1, 2017. Picture taken March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

By Ece Toksabay and Gulsen Solaker

ANKARA (Reuters) – Several thousand people took to the streets of Turkey’s two biggest cities on Thursday to protest against a 25-year prison sentence handed down to an opposition lawmaker on spying charges.

A court sentenced Enis Berberoglu, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), on charges of military espionage on Wednesday. It alleged he gave an opposition newspaper a video purporting to show Turkey’s intelligence agency trucking weapons into Syria.

He is the first lawmaker from the secular CHP to be jailed in a government crackdown that followed last July’s failed coup. More than 50,000 people have been imprisoned and over 150,000 sacked or suspended from their jobs.

Carrying banners that read “Justice”, and waving Turkish flags, crowds demonstrated as CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu started a 425 kilometer (265 mile) march from the capital Ankara to the Istanbul jail where Berberoglu is being held.

Wearing a white shirt and waving at his supporters on the way, 68-year-old Kilicdaroglu embarked on a journey that party officials said could take at least 20 days.

Kilicdaroglu has called the arrest lawless and motivated by the presidential palace, a reference to President Tayyip Erdogan. “Our march will continue until there is justice in this country,” Kilicdaroglu told reporters before setting off.

Crowds gathered at a park in the capital to see him off and to protest Berberoglu’s imprisonment.

“Erdogan is waving his finger at everyone who is against him,” said Nuran, a retired teacher who declined to give her surname. “The arrest was made to send a message but we are not afraid. We will resist until they jail every single one of us.”

Nearby, many people held banners, waved Turkish flags and carried posters of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the secular founder of modern Turkey, and the CHP.

Police imposed tight security measures at the site of the protest, setting up security barriers, sealing off nearby roads and carrying out searches with bomb disposal teams and dogs. Water cannon and armored police vehicles waited nearby.

LAWMAKERS JAILED

Eleven lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have been jailed over terrorism charges since last year, including the party’s two leaders, according to the HDP.

Berberoglu’s lawyer appealed against the lawmaker’s detention, seeking his immediate release. It was not immediately clear when the court would rule on that appeal.

He has been accused of supplying the Cumhuriyet newspaper with a video it used as the basis of a May 2015 report that alleged trucks owned by Turkey’s state intelligence service were found to contain weapons and ammunition headed for Syria when they were stopped and searched in southern Turkey in early 2014.

The government denied accusations that weapons were sent to Syrian rebels, saying the trucks were carrying humanitarian aid. Erdogan later acknowledged the trucks belonged to the state intelligence agency and said they were carrying aid to ethnic Turkmens battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Islamic State.

He accused Cumhuriyet’s editor-in-chief Can Dundar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul of undermining Turkey’s reputation and vowed Dundar would “pay a heavy price”.

Last year, Dundar and Gul were sentenced to at least five years in jail for revealing state secrets in a related case. The prosecutor is now seeking an additional 10 years in prison for the two over the report on the trucks.

Dundar is being tried in absentia after leaving the country. Gul remains in Turkey and free, but his case is in process.

Some 160 journalists are imprisoned in Turkey, according to the journalists union, and authorities have shut down 130 media outlets since the failed coup.

The government says such measures are necessary, given the vast security threats it is facing. Rights groups and some of Turkey’s Western allies have voiced concern at the scope of the crackdown, decrying what they say is growing authoritarianism.

(Writing by Daren Butler and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by David Dolan and Ralph Boulton)

Turkish president says Qatar isolation violates Islamic values

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses members of parliament from his ruling AK Party (AKP) during a meeting at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Turkey, June 13, 2017. Kayhan Ozer/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

By Ercan Gurses and Aziz El Yaakoubi

ANKARA/DUBAI (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan denounced the isolation of Qatar by neighboring states as a violation of Islamic values and akin to a “death penalty” imposed on Doha in a crisis that has reverberated across the Middle East and beyond.

Erdogan’s comments marked the strongest intervention yet by a powerful regional ally of Doha eight days after Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt cut ties with Qatar and imposed stringent economic sanctions on it.

Qatar denies their accusations that it supports Islamist militants and Shi’ite Iran, arch regional foe of the Sunni Gulf Arab monarchies.

“A very grave mistake is being made in Qatar, isolating a nation in all areas is inhumane and against Islamic values. It’s as if a death penalty decision has been taken for Qatar,” Erdogan told members of his ruling AK Party in Ankara.

“Qatar has shown the most decisive stance against the terrorist organization Islamic State alongside Turkey. Victimizing Qatar through smear campaigns serves no purpose.”

The measures against Qatar, a small oil and gas exporter with a population of 2.7 million people, have disrupted imports of food and other materials and caused some foreign banks to scale back business.

Qatar, which imported 80 percent of its food from bigger Gulf Arab neighbors before the diplomatic shutdown, has been talking to Iran and Turkey to secure food and water.

The world’s second largest helium producer, Qatar has also shut its two helium production plants because of the economic boycott, industry sources told Reuters on Tuesday.

Turkey has maintained good relations with Qatar as well as several of its Gulf Arab neighbors. Turkey and Qatar have both provided support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and backed rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi also criticized the measures imposed on Qatar, saying in Baghdad on Tuesday they were hurting the emirate’s people, not its rulers.

SAUDI FOOD SUPPLIES?

Gulf Arab states have issued no public demands to Qatar, but a list that has been circulating includes severing diplomatic ties with Iran, expulsion of all members of the Palestinian Hamas group and the Muslim Brotherhood, the freezing of all bank accounts of Hamas members, ending support for “terrorist organizations” and ending interference in Egyptian affairs.

Some analysts say demands could also include closing down satellite channel Al Jazeera, or changing its editorial policy.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister struck a slightly softer line in comments to reporters during a joint news conference in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, saying Riyadh was ready to send food and medical supplies to Qatar.

The minister, Adel al-Jubeir, defended the Arab powers’ move against Qatar as a boycott, not a blockade, adding: “We have allowed the movement of families between the two countries to happen so that we don’t divide families.”

However, the UAE envoy to Washington, Yousef al Otaiba, reiterated the accusations that Qatar was supporting terrorism.

“Doha has become a financial, media and ideological hub for extremism. Then it must take decisive action to deal once and for all with its extremist problem,” he wrote in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal.

There has been no breakthrough in Kuwaiti efforts to mediate in the crisis, but a U.S. official in the region said Kuwait was continuing with what is seen as a “slow, painstaking, deliberate” process focused inside the GCC.

“The parties are still defining what it is they want out of this confrontation … It’s difficult to conduct negotiations if you don’t really know what everybody wants.”

Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Thani said on Monday Doha “still had no clue” why Arab states had cut ties with his country. He denied Doha supported groups like the Muslim Brotherhood that its neighbors oppose, or had warm ties with their enemy Iran.

INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Erdogan would discuss the Gulf rift in a telephone call with U.S. President Donald Trump in coming days, but gave no specific time.

Turkey last week approved plans to deploy more troops to a military base it has established in Qatar under a 2014 agreement with the Gulf Arab state. The move was seen as support by regional power and NATO member Turkey to Doha.

The Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joseph Dunford, told a Senate hearing that the rift between Qatar and its neighbors was not affecting U.S. military operations.

Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar is home to more than 11,000 U.S. and coalition forces and an important base for the fight against Islamic State militants in the region.

In Moscow, the Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman discussed the Qatar crisis in a phone call on Tuesday. The Kremlin said that the row was not helping to unite efforts to try to find a Syria settlement or fight terrorism.

Morocco has also waded into the crisis, announcing it was sending plane-loads of food supplies to Doha as part of its religious duty during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

So far, the measures against Qatar do not seem to have caused serious shortages of supplies in shops.

Some people have even joked about being “blockaded” inside the world’s richest country: a Twitter page called “Doha under siege” pokes fun at the prospect of readying “escape yachts”, stocking up on caviar and trading Rolex watches for espresso.

But an economic downturn could have more dire consequences for the vast majority of Qatar’s residents, who are not citizens but foreign workers.

Migrant laborers make up 90 percent of Qatar’s population, mostly unskilled and dependent on construction projects such as building stadiums for the 2022 soccer World Cup.

(Reporting by Ercan Gurses and Ece Toksaba in Ankara, additional reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi and Sylvia Westall in Dubai, and Maria Kiselyova in Moscow, Writing by Sami Aboudi and Gareth Jones; editing by Ralph Boulton)

U.S., Turkey discuss Qatar row, Syria on phone call: sources

FILE PHOTO: A view shows buildings in Doha, Qatar, June 9, 2017. REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon

ANKARA (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu discussed developments in Syria and in the row between Qatar and its fellow Arab states on a phone call late on Saturday, Turkish foreign ministry sources said.

The call, held at Tillerson’s request, came after Tillerson on Friday urged Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to ease their blockade of Qatar, saying it was causing unintended humanitarian consequences and affecting the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State.

No further details of the call were immediately available.

Referring to Tillerson’s comments on the blockade, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech at a Ramadan fast-breaking dinner in Istanbul on Friday: “I say it should be lifted completely”.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt severed relations with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting Islamist militants and their adversary Iran – allegations Qatar says are baseless. Several countries followed suit.

Erdogan vowed to keep supporting Qatar after his rapid approval of legislation on deploying Turkish troops there. On Saturday, he told Bahrain’s foreign minister that the dispute should be resolved by the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Erdogan on Thursday also approved an accord between Turkey and Qatar on military training cooperation. Both bills were drawn up before the dispute between Qatar and others erupted. Turkey has also pledged to provide food and water supplies to Qatar.

Turkey and fellow NATO member the United States have also been at loggerheads regarding U.S. support the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in the fight against Islamic State in Syria. Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade-long insurgency on its soil.

The United States said last week it had started supplying arms to the YPG for an assault on the Syrian town of Raqqa, deepening Turkey’s anger. The YPG’s role in the Raqqa campaign has strained ties between the United States and Turkey, which fears growing Kurdish ascendancy along its border.

(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz; writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; editing by Jason Neely)

Turkey detains 60 soldiers, issues detention orders for 128 people: media

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish authorities detained 60 soldiers on Wednesday and issued detention orders for another 128 people in operations targeting the network of a Muslim cleric the government blames for last year’s failed coup, local media reported.

Some 50,000 people have been arrested since the failed putsch in July and around 150,000 sacked or suspended, including soldiers, police, teachers and public servants, over alleged links with the movement of U.S-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Authorities detained the soldiers in raids focused on the central Turkish province of Konya and 32 other provinces, the Hurriyet daily said.

Separately, the state-run Anadolu Agency said detention orders had been issued for 128 people with ties to the publishing company Kaynak Holding, which was linked to the Gulen movement before authorities seized it.

Hundreds of firms like Kaynak, many of them smaller provincial businesses, were seized by authorities in the post-coup crackdown and are now run by government-appointed administrators.

Of the 128 people being sought, Anadolu said 39 people had been detained so far in an operation carried out in Istanbul and seven other provinces.

There was no official comment on the detentions.

On Tuesday, authorities detained the local chair of Amnesty International and 22 other lawyers in the Aegean coastal province of Izmir for suspected links to Gulen’s network, the rights group said. [nL8N1J35YC]

Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, has denied involvement in the coup and condemned it.

The scope of the purges, which have also seen more than 130 media outlets shut down and some 150 journalists jailed, has unnerved rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies, who fear President Tayyip Erdogan is using the coup as a pretext to muzzle dissent and purge opponents.

Turkish officials, however, say the crackdown is necessary due to the gravity of the coup attempt which killed 240 people on July 15.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by David Dolan and Adrian Croft)

Germany says will avoid escalation of Turkey row during troop pullout

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu attend a news conference in Ankara, Turkey, June 5, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s foreign minister said on Tuesday he would try to avoid damaging already strained relations with NATO partner Turkey during a withdrawal of German troops, as he didn’t want a mounting dispute to push Ankara into closer ties with Moscow.

Sigmar Gabriel said his officials would do their best not to escalate the situation as German troops left the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey – in reaction to Ankara’s decision to restrict German lawmakers’ access to the soldiers.

“Above all we should organize the withdrawal so that there is no megaphone diplomacy where we trade insults,” Gabriel told Deutschlandfunk radio.

He said he had agreed with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen that the German cabinet would deal with the issue on Wednesday. He also said the defense ministry had already been working on a withdrawal plan.

Turkey’s ties with Germany and other European Union states deteriorated sharply in the run-up to Turkey’s April 16 referendum that handed President Tayyip Erdogan stronger presidential powers.

Germany, citing security concerns, banned some Turkish politicians from addressing rallies of expatriate Turks before the referendum. Ankara responded by accusing Berlin of “Nazi-like” tactics, drawing rebukes from Berlin.

Turkey has reignited a row over access to German forces on its territory by imposing new restrictions on German lawmakers visiting Incirlik.

The German deployment at Incirlik is part of a mission providing reconnaissance aircraft to support U.S.-led coalition operations against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Gabriel said the defense ministry had concluded it now made more sense logistically to send Germany’s Tornado jets to Jordan.

“We have no interest in pushing Turkey into a corner … we don’t want to push it towards Russia,” Gabriel said. “This is no small thing but it is about more than Incirlik, it’s about our relationship with Turkey,” he said.

Turkey has been seeking to improve relations with Russia. Last month it agreed plans with Moscow and Tehran to reduce the fighting in Syria, and has been working to end economic barriers imposed after Turkey shot down a Russian plane near the Syrian border in 2015.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said after meeting Gabriel in Ankara on Monday that relations with Germany had suffered recently, but that trade and investment between the two countries were still strong.

“We spoke about how we can focus on this more, what steps could be taken to increase contact between the two nations and disperse this negative atmosphere,” he said.

Berlin is also worried about a security crackdown in Turkey after last year’s failed coup. Some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs and 50,000 people jailed pending trial.

“Turkey wants an expansion of the customs union. We say we are ready for that … but you have to move, too,” said Gabriel, who stressed that adhering to the rule of law was necessary.

Germany has also pushed for the release of German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel, who was arrested in Turkey in February on a charge of spreading terrorist propaganda.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Turkey’s Erdogan holds talks with leaders on lowering Qatar tension: sources

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has spoken by phone with the leaders of Qatar, Russia, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia on lowering tension, presidential sources said, after Arab powers cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting Islamist militants.

“The importance of regional peace and stability was underlined in the talks, as well as the importance of focusing on the path of diplomacy and dialogue to lower the current tension,” the sources said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain severed their ties with Qatar on Monday, opening up the worst rift in years among some of the most powerful states in the Arab world.

Turkey has good relations with Qatar as well as several of its Gulf Arab neighbors and Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Monday that Ankara wanted to help resolve the dispute.

After the talks between Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said late on Monday they called for dialogue and compromise.

Erdogan also spoke with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and the emirs of Qatar and Kuwait. The sources said Erdogan would continue his contacts on the issue.

(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Turkish authorities briefly detain spokesman for pro-Kurdish opposition: lawmaker

FILE PHOTO: Osman Baydemir, spokesman for the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), addresses members of parliament from his party during a meeting at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Turkey April 18, 2017. Picture taken April 18, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas/File Photo

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish authorities briefly detained the spokesman of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) for insulting police on Friday, a party lawmaker said, the latest detention of a high-profile politician from the pro-Kurdish opposition.

Osman Baydemir was released after a brief detention and testimony at the local prosecutor’s office, fellow lawmaker Meral Danis Bestas said.

Baydemir, 46, was elected to the Turkish parliament in 2014. In addition to representing the southeastern province of Sanliurfa, he also serves as the HDP’s national spokesman.

More than a dozen HDP lawmakers have been jailed, mostly due to alleged links with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against Turkey for more than three decades. The HDP denies direct ties to the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, Turkey and the European Union.

The party’s co-leaders, Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, have also been jailed, which handicapped its campaign against the April referendum to change the constitution and grant President Tayyip Erodgan sweeping new powers. Turks narrowly backed the constitutional change on April 16.

The HDP says as many as 5,000 of its members have been detained as part of a crackdown that followed last year’s failed coup, and which rights groups say targets dissent.

Prosecutors want Demirtas jailed for 142 years and Yuksekdag for up to 83 years on charges of terrorist group propaganda. Demirtas was sentenced in February for “insulting the Turkish people, the government and state institutions”.

A ceasefire between the Turkish state and the PKK broke down in July 2015 and the southeast subsequently saw some of the worst violence since the PKK launched its insurgency in 1984.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by David Dolan and Stephen Powell)

Good atmosphere but nothing new in EU talks with Erdogan, sources say

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech during a graduation ceremony at an Imam Hatip religious school association in Istanbul, Turkey, May 26, 2017. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Talks last week between the heads of European Union institutions and Turkey’s president, Tayyip Erdogan, were held in a “good atmosphere” but produced no new agreements, officials in Brussels said, playing down comments by the Turkish leader.

Tensions between Turkey and the EU run high over rights and security issues, but the bloc depends on the help of NATO ally Ankara on migration and the conflict in Syria.

After meeting European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker last week in Brussels, Erdogan was quoted as saying he had been presented with a new 12-month timetable for renewing ties.

But senior EU officials voiced caution and some scepticism, saying no formal deadlines were set. The EU has a list of mid- and high-level meetings it hopes to hold with Turkey this year, they said, but any improvement in bilateral ties would depend on Erdogan’s resolving at least some of many points of contention.

They include the EU’s worry that Turkey’s anti-terror laws are too broad and used to persecute Erdogan critics, as demonstrated in Ankara’s sweeping security crackdown following a botched coup almost a year ago.

Other concerns relate to the treatment of the Kurds, the media and academics, as well as Erdogan moving to assume even more powers following an April referendum.

The pre-referendum campaign produced new spats with EU members Germany and the Netherlands, whose authorities Erdogan likened to Nazis when they had prevented Turkish politicians from campaigning in their countries.

Despite the often harsh rhetoric, senior EU officials said the atmosphere of the meeting was “good” and “constructive”.

“It was definitely not hostile, but both sides pretty much restated their well-known positions,” one of the sources said.

Turkey complains about slow progress in its stalled EU accession talks, discussions on visa-free travel for Turks to the EU and disbursement of EU funds to Syrian refugees living in Turkey.

The bloc says Erdogan must first address concerns over human rights and rule of law, and should work with the Council of Europe – a European rights watchdog of which Turkey is a member – on that..

The EU says progress in talks over reuniting the ethnically split Cyprus is also key to unlocking other area, including ideas to beef up an existing customs union between Turkey and the EU.

Erdogan has suggested Turkey could hold a referendum on continuing EU accession talks, and possibly another on reinstating the death penalty. Restoring capital punishment would end Turkey’s bid to join the EU.

EU leaders will discuss their ties and especially their cooperation with Turkey on migration when in Brussels on June 22-23. Calls from the European Parliament to formally halt Turkey’s accession talks have so far not reached critical mass.

“We have no choice,” one of the sources said when asked if the EU was looking to working more with Turkey after the top-level talks with Erdogan.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska, editing by Larry King)

EU raises human rights in talks with Turkey’s Erdogan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L) shakes hands with European Council President Donald Tusk (R) in Brussels, Belgium, May 25, 2017. REUTERS/Oliver Hoslet/Pool

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Senior European Union officials on Thursday pressed President Tayyip Erdogan over Turkey’s human rights record while he pushed Brussels to deliver on promises of visa-free travel to Europe for Turks.

Erdogan’s visit to Brussels, where he was also due to attend a NATO summit, comes at a time of strain in EU-Turkey relations.

The EU has expressed concern over Turkey’s sacking and jailing of tens of thousands of soldiers, police, teachers and civil servants since a failed military coup last July. It has also criticized a revamping of Turkey’s constitution – backed by a referendum – that greatly expands Erdogan’s powers.

Turkey says its crackdown is targeting supporters of a exiled Muslim cleric it blames for the coup attempt. It has also accused the EU of frustrating Ankara’s decades-old bid to join the bloc. Talks are now effectively frozen and Erdogan has suggested Turkey might walk away from the EU.

“We discussed the need to cooperate. I put the question of human rights in the center of our discussions with Erdogan,” European Council chief Donald Tusk wrote in a tweet following the meeting but gave no further details.

Erdogan posed for photos with Tusk and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker but the atmosphere was frosty and they exchanged no words in public, in contrast to the impromptu conversation the EU officials struck up with U.S. President Donald Trump earlier in the day.

Juncker, Tusk and Erdogan met together for 40 minutes, followed by a 30-minute meeting between Juncker and Erdogan, a spokeswoman for the Commission said.

“The EU and Turkey must and will continue to cooperate. Major issues of common interest were discussed in detail in a good and constructive atmosphere,” she said.

MIGRANT DEAL

EU officials said the three men discussed the functioning of a 2016 accord whereby Ankara prevents migrants traveling from its territory to Europe in return for funds to aid refugees stuck in Turkey and visa-free travel to the bloc for Turks.

Ankara has previously threatened to walk away from the deal, citing frustration over what it says is Europe’s failure to deliver on its side of the bargain. The EU says Turkey must first amend its security laws.

But EU officials said the agreement did not appear to be in jeopardy after the talks between Erdogan, Tusk and Juncker, their first for nine months. “It is working so far,” one EU official said. “We didn’t see any sign of it changing.”

Turkish presidential sources said Erdogan, Tusk and Juncker had emphasized the need to implement the deal on migrants in their talks.

Erdogan also met new French President Emmanuel Macron in Brussels and they agreed on boosting annual bilateral trade to 20 billion euros ($22 billion) and improving Ankara’s diplomatic ties with the EU, the Turkish sources said.

Macron raised the issue of a French photographer detained by Turkish police while on an assignment in the mainly Kurdish southeast and who has begun a hunger strike in protest, a French official said.

Erdogan told Macron he would quickly look into the situation. Macron and Erdogan also agreed to strengthen consultations on the situation in Syria, the official said.

(Reporting By Philip Blenkinsop, Alastair Macdonald and Michel Rose; additional reporting by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by David Dolan,; Editing by Robert-Jan Bartunek and Gareth Jones)

Sign up for Jim Bakker Show