UPDATE - Turkey part of Europe: Turkish diplomat

UPDATES WITH DETAILS OF EUROPEAN COMMISSION REPORT ON TURKEY

By Tugcenur Yilmaz, Zuhal Demirci and Zehra Nur Duz

ANKARA (AA) - Ankara's top diplomat for EU affairs said on Wednesday that it is not possible to accept “unjust and disproportionate criticisms” in the 2019 EU Commission report on Turkey.

“The EU does not demonstrate impartial attitude towards Turkey because of the prejudices arising from their own problems,” Faruk Kaymakci said.

The European Commission published Wednesday a report on Turkey as part of EU’s 2019 Enlargement Package which includes country reports for the six Western Balkans states and Turkey.

The report praised the effective dialogue and cooperation in the field of migration between the EU and Turkey, while it strongly criticized Turkey on the issues of the rule of law, fundamental rights, freedoms, the new presidential system, separation of powers and “growing political polarization”.

“Turkey made good progress in the area of migration and asylum policy and remained committed to the effective implementation of the March 2016 EU-Turkey statement,” according to a statement by European Commission on key findings of the 2019 Report on Turkey.

The report, on the other hand, criticized Turkey in terms of human and fundamental rights, citing backsliding in some areas, including freedom of expression.

Underlining that the report reflects the EU's own existential crises, Kaymakci said that populist movements correspond to the European public opinion as seen in the European Parliament elections.

Kaymakci added: “EU cannot identify the current situation in Turkey correctly,” stressing EU’s alienation from its founding ideology.

“The statements claiming that Turkey is moving away from European values are inconsistent and invalid [...] Turkey is a part of Europe. Turkey is Europe,” he said.

Kaymakci stressed that Turkey will contemplate on the consistent and reasonable criticisms in the report.

The report also praised high voter turnouts in the June 2018 presidential and parliamentary elections and the March 2019 municipal elections, while criticizing “the lack of conditions for contestants to compete on an equal basis.”

He also criticized the reference to the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) as "Gulen Movement", describing it as if a civil society organization.

FETO and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, which left 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.

Ankara also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.

* Writing by Zehra Nur Duz