Turkish parliamentarians expressed their disapproval of the draft report in a letter as the European Parliament (EP) rapporteur for Turkey beings working on the EU-Turkey 2016 Progress Report.

Co-penned by the Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Committee co-chairman, Ahmet Berat, Conkar and the EU Harmonization Committee chairman, Mehmet Kasım Gülpınar, deputies emphasized in a letter that they have tried to utilize balanced and fair criticism taken from previous progress reports, while stressing that the inclusion of the EP's resolution on the centenary of the 1915 events in last year's progress report was an unfortunate occurrence.

"This year, unfortunately, we are facing the same disappointment," the deputies said in the letter sent to the EP rapporteur for Turkey, Dutch parliamentarian Kati Piri and the co-president of the Joint Parliamentary Committee, Greek parliamentarian Manolis Kefalogiannis. "We explained that any reference to the April 15 resolution of 2015 in the upcoming resolution would overshadow our relations with [European] parliament, at a time when our relations with the EU have gained momentum in the wake of the Turkey-EU summits and the accelerated, high-level dialogue at different levels," the letter stated.

"We would expect the members of European Parliament not to put personal or national agendas ahead of the EU's general interest."