Turkish EU Minister says membership is an indispensable goal

While describing Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s recent visit to Brussels as “extremely successful,” the EU Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said EU membership is an “indispensable goal” for Turkey, despite certain flaws and mutual resentments.

Ahead of the visit, some suggested that Turkey’s EU membership negotiations would be halted and that both Erdoğan and Turkey would receive very harsh warnings, “but today, Turkey is a very important country for the European Union,” Çavuşoğlu said on Jan. 23.

“The European Union is also an indispensable process and goal. So, as long as this understanding prevails on both sides, sometimes there may be problems and sometimes flaws and sometimes we may have mutual resentments. It may be within the family and it may be within the party but what matters is not diverging from this goal, and definitely not taking a step backwards from this goal,” he said.