Turkish Minister decries EU report as ‘biased’

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey's EU Minister Egemen Bağış criticized the European Union's annual report for being “biased”, saying that it was a complete disappointment for Turkey.

According to Today’s Zaman, speaking at a press conference soon after the release of the annual progress report in Brussels, Bağış said it was “obvious that the EU, already suffering from economic and political crises, is trying to delay Turkey's full membership by offering a variety of pretexts.”

He said the “Greek Cypriots' intensive lobbying efforts in the EU as the holder of the EU term presidency has aggravated already disappointing points mentioned in the report.”

“With this pessimistic approach, the EU, unfortunately, overshadowed the positive agenda that was launched in May,” Bağış told reporters.

The Turkish minister described the 2012 report as a “movie script that does not present an objective picture of Turkey and that nobody knows how it will eventually play out.” Bağış blasted the EU by saying that the way the report was written “actually serves the interests of those people who do not want to see Turkey move along with further democratization efforts.”