Minister of European Union Affairs and Chief Negotiator Ömer Çelik will be in Brussels today for a two-day visit to hold meetings with officials from the European Commission (EC) and to participate in the Turkey-EU Civil Society Gathering.

During the visit, which comes five days after the European Parliament voted to freeze Turkey's EU accession talks, Çelik will meet with the EC's First Vice President Frans Timmermans, EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos, European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Canete and the commissioner for the Security Union, Julian King.

Apart from meeting with journalists, academics and businessmen at the Turkey-EU Civil Society Gathering, Çelik will also attend the EC's Education in Emergencies Forum to present a speech on the education of refugee children.

Following the EP's decision to freeze negotiations with Turkey, Çelik called on EU leaders to hold a summit in Turkey to discuss the future of relations with the country and added that Turkey has no intentions of severing ties with the EU, saying that Turkish officials who made previous statements on the issue were merely exercising their right to reply to dissidents.

"We are experiencing the most fragile period in the history of our relations with the EU. Amid the rise of far-right politics in Europe, the EP's decision [to freeze relations] is a grave mistake for mainstream politics, which only satisfies the demands of the extreme right movements. I define this situation as a political matryoshka; the outermost layer of which is the anti-Turkish sentiment and the innermost layer of which is Europhobia. Extremist, anti-EU politicians are masquerading behind an anti-Turkish stance," Çelik said.

Some European countries said that they will maintain support for Turkey's accession process despite the EP's decision. The U.K. Foreign Ministry stated that the U.K. will continue to support countries committed to the accession process. The German Foreign Ministry said the EU should not freeze Turkey's negotiations to join the bloc, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Sawsan Chebli saying, "It is important that we do not freeze accession negotiations because that would only further damage the relationship between Turkey and Europe, which is neither in the interests of Turkey nor Europe." Croatian Foreign Minister Davor Ivo Stier also said that "It is not in the interest of the EU, Croatia or Slovenia to suspend talks with Turkey. ...we need [to have] a balanced standpoint toward Ankara."