BRUSSELS (AP) – The European Union is debating how to move forward in membership talks with Turkey amid a push to freeze the negotiations in response to the government’s security crackdown since the failed coup.
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said Tuesday that his country “will say that it’s impossible to open new chapters for the accession process.”
Reynders said it is important to cooperate with Turkey to fight terrorism, exchange information about foreign fighters from Europe traveling to Syria and Iraq and to manage the refugee crisis.
But on membership, he said, “it’s difficult to go further with such a situation in Turkey.”
Turkish authorities have arrested almost 38,000 people and purged more than 100,000 others from government jobs since the thwarted coup on July 15.