Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany met with Turkey’s prime minister here on Wednesday and pledged that the European Union
would continue to pursue talks “in good faith” over Turkey’s accession
to the bloc, despite disagreements that have proved challenging for both
sides.
“The E.U. is an honest negotiating partner,” Ms. Merkel said. “These
negotiations will continue irrespective of the questions that we have to
clarify.”
Her pledge came after the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, warned that the European Union stood in danger of losing Turkey if it was not granted membership by 2023.
“No other country has been kept waiting, knocking on the door of the
E.U., for such a long time,” Mr. Erdogan told a gathering in Berlin late
Tuesday, hours after he opened his country’s new embassy to Germany. An
ever stronger economic and political force in the region, Turkey has
been in negotiations to join the bloc since 1995, and some analysts have
worried that a frustrated Turkey might shift from its Western focus to
building stronger ties with Moscow and Tehran.
Despite Turkey’s status as a NATO ally and its long-running ties to much
of Europe, Germany, France, Austria and the Netherlands have never
fully warmed to the idea of granting it full European Union membership.
Ms. Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union has even suggested
that Turkey be granted instead a special status in the form of a
“privileged partnership.”
On Wednesday, the chancellor insisted that she and the Turkish leader
had been able to work together despite their differences on membership.
She praised the openness with which Turkey had accepted the flood of refugees — estimated at more than 100,000
— who have poured in from Syria and the “prudence” with which Mr.
Erdogan’s government had handled the recent threat of escalating
frictions at the border.
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