“EU will lose Turkey if it doesn’t join by 2023”

Source: Tanjug

BERLIN -- The European Union will lose Turkey if it doesn't grant it membership by 2023, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Beta, file)

“They probably won't string us along that long. But if they do string us along until then the European Union will lose out, and at the very least they will lose Turkey," he said at a panel discussion in Berlin when asked if Turkey would be an EU member by 2023, Reuters has reported.
“The predominantly Muslim but secular country of some 74 million people would strengthen the European Union. Some six million Turks already live within the European Union, about 3 million of them in Germany,” Erdogan said.

Turkey will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its foundation as a republic from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire in 2023, Reuters reports.

It was the first time Erdogan has given an indication of how long Ankara might continue down the path towards EU entry, and his comments came at a time of growing alienation between Turkey and a political entity it feels has cold-shouldered it.

Turkey's bid to join the EU was officially launched in 2005 and the country has only managed to fulfill one out of 35 necessary chapters so far. The European Commission (EC) says Turkey does not yet meet required standards on human rights and freedom of speech.

Turkey’s EU integration process virtually ground to a halt in recent years due to opposition from core EU members and the failure to find a solution to the dispute over the divided island of Cyprus. Turkish troops invaded the northern part of Cyprus in 1974.