ISTANBUL, Turkey, Oct. 5 (UPI) — The European Union should do more to take on Kurdish militants if it is serious about addressing the threat, the Turkish prime minister said.
Turkey is lobbying to become a member of the European Union. Member states, however, say Ankara needs to do more to address internal issues and repair relations damaged over problems in Greek Cyprus.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that if EU members states were truly in favor of enlargement, “(they) should support Turkey’s membership,” he was quoted by Turkish daily newspaper Today’s Zaman as saying.
Ankara recently passed a series of constitutional reforms, meanwhile, that observers said broke through many psychological barriers to addressing problems with the Kurdish minority.
Conflict with the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has taken a heavy toll on Turkey. Ankara lashed out at Russia recently for failing to control illegal arms shipments to the Kurdish militant group and Erdogan accused Europe of being equally unconcerned.
“If the EU declares the PKK a terrorist organization, then the fight (against them) should be carried out in cooperation,” he was quoted as saying. “Unfortunately, this is not what some EU countries appear to be doing.”
The EU, Iraq, the United States and several others list the PKK as a terrorist organization. German, Italian and Belgian authorities rounded up scores of suspected PKK militants during the spring because of recruitment efforts at alleged training camps.
Source: Special Reports on UPI.com