German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said Berlin desires to see Ankara in the European Union, noting T\u00fcrkiye’s role in foreign policy.<\/p>\n
Merz said on Thursday that he told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he seeks to launch a strategic dialogue on the issue at the European level and that they discussed the Copenhagen criteria.<\/p>\n
President Erdogan, however, responded by saying that if T\u00fcrkiye is assessed by the Copenhagen criteria, Ankara has its own \u201cAnkara criteria\u201d, which guide its engagement with Europe and the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to continue these discussions going forward,\u201d said Merz, who visited T\u00fcrkiye as the chancellor for the first time, said in a news conference with Erdogan in the capital Ankara.<\/p>\n
Noting that the world has entered \u201ca new geopolitical phase where major powers will shape global politics\u201d, he added, \u201cAs a German and European, we must deepen strategic partnerships, and T\u00fcrkiye cannot be excluded.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cT\u00fcrkiye is a very important actor in all foreign policy and security matters that concern us,” he added.<\/p>\n
He vowed that Germany would pursue closer cooperation with T\u00fcrkiye on security policy.<\/p>\n
Peace in Gaza<\/strong><\/p>\n Noting that the Gaza situation was also discussed, Merz said, \u201cThe release of hostages and progress on the ceasefire is very positive. For the first time, there is hope for lasting peace.\u201d<\/p>\n Thanking Erdogan for T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s role in fostering peace in Gaza, he added, \u201cThis process would not have been possible without T\u00fcrkiye, Qatar, Egypt, and the US. Thank you for making it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said Berlin desires to see Ankara in the European Union, noting T\u00fcrkiye’s role…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,1699],"class_list":{"0":"post-538186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-european-union"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115464626954527904","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}