President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has met with top EU officials in Varna, Bulgaria where they were involved in very frank discussions on the current disagreements between Ankara and the EU and how to bridge the gaps.
Turkey and the EU are clearly at very different frequencies and the current process is designed to mend some fences and re-establish mutual trust in areas where crises of confidence have emerged regarding some thorny issues.
The problems between Ankara and the EU are further complicated as Greek Cyprus further polluting the atmosphere between Ankara and Brussels. This is evident as Greek Cyprus and Greece ganged up to push for a declaration by the recently held EU summit where the bloc condemned Ankara for its handling of the dispute with Greek Cyprus over oil and natural gas rights in the Eastern Mediterranean and the tensions with Greece in the Aegean Sea.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has called upon the EU to terminate full membership talks with Ankara just as Erdoğan was preparing to meet European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker. This seems to be a deliberate attempt to sabotage the Varna meeting.
So, amid this political minefield, the president and the EU's top officials met to discuss the promises that the EU has failed to keep and the EU's complaints about Ankara regarding human rights issues and press freedom in Turkey.
Ankara has gone to pains to continuously explain to its counterparts in the EU that the ongoing emergency rule is vital to unravel the mess created by the July 15, 2016 coup attempt by the Gülenist Terror Organization (FETÖ) and create a safe and secure environment in the country. They have failed to see that state of emergency dictates are so mild that many of us who remember past states of emergency and martial law in Turkey call this one state of emergency light.
It is no secret that FETÖ has found sanctuary in many European, countries much to the dismay of Ankara. What is sad is that EU officials and leaders of member states have failed to applaud the Turkish people for standing up to tanks during the coup attempt and giving their lives for democracy.
Ankara is frustrated to see that while EU countries have put the PKK on their list of terrorist organizations, many countries allow the group to operate openly, display their symbols and chant slogans.
The fact that many EU countries tried to dissuade Ankara from launching a military operation to wipe out the PKK-affiliated People's Protection Units (YPG) in the northern Syrian region of Afrin has created a furor in the Turkish public. That Turkey uncovered massive, expensive and sophisticated YPG defenses in Afrin has created deep suspicions in Turkey that they were financed by some EU member countries and the United States.
Yet the massive success in Afrin has put Erdoğan in a strong position when he sat down with EU officials. They now see Turkey's political and military clout and realize that this could be an asset as much as it can turn into a serious liability for them. Turkey does not only wage war against terrorists but has also taken in 3 million Syrian refugees who fled the bloody civil war in their country. Turkey has served as a buffer for the EU to halt the tide of Syrian refugees reaching Europe. They owe much to Turkey.
They acknowledged Turkey's sacrifices and agreed in return to provide visa free access to Turkish nationals in the Schengen zone and also to provide two separate tranches of 3 billion euros for the refugees, but even half of the first 3 billion has hardly arrived.
In view of the summit in Varna, the EU now has to sit down and decide how it will proceed in its relations with Ankara. This means they all have to learn to live with Erdoğan.