EU Commission: Readmission Agreement is Prerequisite for Visa Waiver

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The European Commission (EU) issuing a statement has remarked, “The Readmission Agreement is prerequisite for visa waiver”. It stated that in case Turkey does its part, visa waiver will be actualized.

Erdoğan: You can’t dictate criteria on Turkey

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the UN Humanitarian Summit held on Tuesday saying Turkey can’t be dictated criteria, noted that the Readmission Agreement will not pass in the parliament if no agreement is reached on the visa waiver issue.

Merkel: We adhere to the agreement

After Erdoğan’s speech, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stating that she was not worried about the agreement said, “Though it will take a bit longer to clarify some issues but in principle we will adhere to the agreements we’ve made in any case”.

EU’s stance

Before Erdoğan’s speech, the EU had declared that the visa waiver planned to enter in force by July 1, 2016 will not be able to be actualized on planned date, and that Turkey firstly has to fulfill the required conditions.

The EU Commission in its report it released on May 4 expressing Turkey has met 67 criteria of the 72 but annotated that the remaining five criteria must be fulfilled as well.

In response to that, Turkey had stated that it will not revise the Anti-Terror Law which is one of the five criteria the EU demanded. (YY/TK)