Turkish FM urges EU to be equal in talking

Visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu criticised the EU's conduct towards his country and its failures in general at the Bled Strategic Forum (BSF) in Slovenia on Tuesday, urging the bloc to reform and start considering Turkey as an equal partner.

The EU had long been a defender of liberal democracy and human rights, but in the past 10 years it has lost credibility with its failure to respond to the crises in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine, he was quoted as saying in a report by Slovenian Press Agency.

The Turkish foreign minister failed to attend the debate at the leadership pannel of the BSF on Monday and made his speech at BSF Tuesday.

He said it (the EU) also lacks leadership, instead of adopting a single model to deal with the migration crisis, individual countries are building fences.

There has also been a rise of racism, xenophobia and islamophobia, which are no longer fringe phenomena, but were rather "adopted by mainstream politicians", which has normalised extremism and intolerance.

The result is a gap between the notion of what the EU can do and reality, which is affecting the bloc's credibility, the Turkish minister said.

Cavusoglu said the bloc needed to regain its transformational capacity, which had in the past manifested itself in enlargement, the biggest source of its soft power.

However, it needs to change its conduct, he said in reference to Turkey's EU accession talks, which he said were little but the adoption of EU standards with virtually no negotiations.

"Unlike two decades ago, there are new regional and global powers ... The EU needs to change its perceptions," he said.

Over 700 participants from over 70 countries and regions are attending the 11th Slovenian-hosted BSF, which concludes Tuesday at the tourist attraction of Lake Bled, some 55 km northwest to the capital city of Ljubljana. Endit