Foreign Ministers of European Union states are set to discuss the bloc’s relations with Türkiye at a meeting in Brussels later this week, an anonymous high-level EU official announced Tuesday.
The official said ties with Türkiye are one of the most important relations for the union, emphasizing that Türkiye was “still a candidate state” despite the stalled accession process.
At a two-day summit in the Belgian capital in late June, the 27 EU heads of state and government invited Josep Borrell and the European Commission to submit a report “on the state of play of EU-Türkiye relations” in light of the recent general and presidential elections in Türkiye.
The foreign ministers will hold their first conversation on the said report at Thursday’s meeting, the official informed. The document is expected to build “on the instruments and options identified by the European Council and proceed in a strategic and forward-looking manner.”
The EU has observed changes in Türkiye’s recent foreign policies and “wants to test Türkiye’s attitude about the EU and see where relations can go in the coming months.”
Despite the differences of opinion between the bloc and Ankara over several issues, including the Cyprus issue, Syria, Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean, the bloc wants to keep channels of communication open and maintain dialogue with “an important country like Türkiye,” EU officials said.
The EU leaders previously called for a “speedy resumption of negotiations” under the U.N. framework for finding a “comprehensive settlement for the Cyprus issue.”
The Cyprus issue is an ongoing dispute between the Greek Cypriot administration in the south and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) over sovereign rights on the island.
The TRNC entirely broke away from the south and declared independence in 1983 after a coup aimed at Greece’s annexation of the island led to Türkiye’s military intervention, dubbed Cyprus Peace Operation, as a power guarantor to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence.
Turkish Cyprus demanded a two-state solution that would ensure international recognition and equal sovereignty and status, which the Greek Cypriots rejected. Several on-and-off peace talks, including a U.N.-backed reunification solution, have collapsed so far.
The crisis also looms over Türkiye’s accession to the EU, which has been essentially frozen due to political roadblocks by certain EU members, including Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration, for reasons unrelated to membership criteria, according to Ankara.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will also attend Thursday’s assembly via video conference. The part of the meeting Blinken will join will focus on Türkiye and the aftermath of Ankara’s decision to green-light Sweden’s NATO membership bid at the Vilnius summit last week.
Other topics for the EU diplomats will include Russia and economic security, as well as support for Ukraine, China, Tunisia and Azerbaijan-Armenia relations.
In the meantime, the EU has emphasized it would continue cooperating with the U.N. and Türkiye to extend the Black Sea Grain Initiative between Russia and Ukraine. Several officials have expressed full support for U.N. and Ankara’s mediation to save the deal, which has proven vital in preventing a global food crisis.
A year ago, Türkiye, the U.N., Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement in Istanbul to resume grain exports from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports, which paused after the Russia-Ukraine war began that February.
The deal has been renewed several times since then, and it was extended for another two months on May 18 until it expired on July 17. Moscow has refused to renew it, saying the part relating to Russia in the agreement “has not been implemented so far,” meaning the removal of obstacles to its fertilizer exports along the same route.
