Angela Merkel says the EU’s relationship with Turkey has been damaged

German Chancellor Angela Merkel.Photo:Thursday, April 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Developments in Turkey recently have hit the EU’s relationship to Turkey hard, said the German Chancellor Angela Merkel .
In a speech to Germans elected to the Bundestag on Thursday, Merkel also emphasised that Turkey’s treatment of Deniz Yucel,
a German journalist imprisoned in Istanbul, ‘does not comply with the legal protection’.

In Turkey, tens of thousands of people have been arrested, several thousand only recently, in the wake of the attempted coup
last summer. They are mostly people suspected of having supported the Muslim minister, Fethullah Gülen, who lives in exile
in the United States.

At the same time, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received a majority for controversial amendments, strengthening his power,
in a recent referendum.

The election campaign before the referendum was marked by Erdogan’s violent outbursts against several European countries,
including Germany and the Netherlands.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today