Criteria Erdoğan Denies to ‘Exist’ are in Roadmap

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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has alleged that revising the Anti-Terror Law (TMK) is not among the criteria required to fulfill the needs of European Union visa waiver.

However, the need for revision explicitly takes place in the Article No. 65 of the roadmap of the European Council as stated in its Twitter account.

European Council shared this roadmap on its Twitter account last week.

What did President Erdoğan say?

Erdoğan had made the following statement as to EU’s stipulations for visa waiver:

“Rest assured about visa matter. I say the EU will bring the visa waiver.

“72 criteria have been put forward, they didn’t exist before, where did they come from?

“There are five articles, one of them is disastrous, they asked us to change the Anti-Terror Law. When have you seen Turkey receiving such instructions, this cannot happen”.

Article No. 65 of the roadmap

Article No. 65 of the roadmap regulates the “revision of anti-terror laws”.

The notes as to criteria expected to be met are as follows:

Turkey needs to revise its legislation and practices on terrorism in line with European standards, notably by better aligning the definition of terrorism in order to narrow the scope.

A draft law on the establishment of a commission to inspect alleged violations committed by the law enforcement agencies in times of peace is being drafted by Turkish authorities, but has not yet been adopted.

EP President Schulz: I don’t see Turkey can make it

European Parliament (EP) President, Martin Schulz in his statement as to providing Turkey visa waiver by June stated that the parliament’s discussing the matter without fulfilling the criteria is out of question.

Schulz in his interview Deutschlandfunk radio reminded that Turkey hasn’t started to tackle the required changes, and stated that he didn’t refer the matter to the commission for this reason.

“I don’t see Turkey can make it”, said Schulz.

Bozkır: Discussing the definition is out of question

Minister of European Union and Chief Negotiator, Volkan Bozkır made explanations as to visa waiver.

In the interview he gave to NTV, he claimed that the anti-terror law is in line with EU standards and added, “Discussing the terror definition is out of question”. (YY/TK)