海角大神

Turkish president Tayyip Erdo臒an聽said on Wednesday that an upcoming vote by the European Parliament on whether to suspend talks over Turkish membership聽鈥渉as no value in our eyes鈥� and聽accused the European Union of withholding聽鈥渃oncrete support" from Turkey鈥檚 bid to suppress groups it views as terrorists.

"We have made clear time and time again that we take care of European values more than many European Union countries, but we could not see concrete support from Western friends ... None of the promises were kept," he said at an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) conference in Istanbul, according to Reuters. He went on to call on countries in the OIC to stand up to Western countries where Muslims were subject to聽鈥渄ouble standards, prejudice, alienation,鈥� the Associated Press reports.

The comments come as Turkey-EU relations reach a relative low point. Mr. Erdo臒an鈥檚 apparent indifference to EU membership has been accompanied by solicitous gestures toward EU rivals聽鈥� he has suggested that Turkey could join the Russia- and China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an alternative聽鈥� as a decade鈥檚 worth of talks with the EU, a bloc his country once seemed poised to join, have fizzled into animus.

In 2004, on the eve of an EU report recommending talks with Turkey over potential membership, 海角大神 wrote that leaders in the bloc could give a聽鈥渉istoric聽鈥榶es鈥欌�� to the idea that same year:聽

Britain, of all countries, had taken the lead in convincing skeptics like Austria, where popular opinion was opposed to Turkish membership for reasons that parallel more recent upheavals.

"Austria, a country of 8.2 million, is home to 250,000 Turks. Fears have grown of a new influx if Turkey joins the EU, aggravating unemployment in the Alpine country,鈥澛燤ark Rice-Oxley wrote for the Monitor in 2005. "Popular opinion in swaths of continental Europe has turned heavily against Turkish accession for economic and cultural reasons; some politicians pander to such a viewpoint to win votes."

Erdo臒an, too, was once hailed as the man who would lead Turkey into Europe, pushing through reforms needed to align the country鈥檚 laws with those of the bloc, like an abolition of the death penalty, a crackdown on the use of torture and the securing of more rights for the Kurdish minority.

But critics of the Turkish president accuse him of autocratic tendencies as intra-EU tensions grew and Turkey鈥檚 bid lost momentum 鈥� tendencies that have turned full-blown after a failed coup this past July, which provoked a massive purge of police and civil services seen as havens for an influential opponent. And US and EU cooperation with Kurdish groups in their fight against the so-called Islamic State group has inflamed Erdo臒an, who accuses Europe of harboring members of the PKK, a Kurdish militant group closely aligned with the coalition鈥檚 allies.

On Wednesday, Erdo臒an聽said that the presence of PKK-sympathetic protestors near an EU-Turkey summit in Brussels demonstrated the EU鈥檚 鈥渢wo-faced鈥� nature, AP reports.聽

"On one hand you declare the PKK a terrorist organization, on the other you have terrorists roaming freely in the streets of Brussels. What kind of sincerity is this?" he said.

This report contains materials from the Associated Press and Reuters.