Turkish European Union Minister and Chief Negotiator s has accused France of turning the freedom of expression into the impairment of expression.
Egemen Bagıs who held a press conference after completion of his contacts in Brussels touched on the criticisms directed against Turkey by Europe about the freedom of speech.
Bagıs said that if the EU gave due importance to the freedom of speech in Turkey in earnest, it should open the two chapters related to that subject.
He pointed to the referral to the Constitutional Court in France of what he called the law of shame on Armenian allegations and said those efforts by France gave it a picture of weakness.
He spoke of the conflict between a Europe giving utmost importance to the freedom of speech in Turkey and its members turning their own freedom of expression to the impairment of expression and said that that move by France was tantamount to carrying itself back to Medieval times, something he stressed, which needed to be resisted all together.
European Minister and Chief Negotiator Bagıs called on Europe to lift the Greek Cypriot veto and open the relevent chapters in the membership negotiations, naming them as the 23rd and 24th chapters. He said further that since those two chapters were expressed to be much more important than everything else in the context of the membership talks with Montenegro and the other candidates , as also acknowledged by the Greek Cypriots, the EU should open those chapters for Turkey as well so that some work to institutionalize those concepts could be carried out by Turkey.
Bagıs also said that Turkey was not going to attend any of the meetings chaired by the Greek Cypriot sector of Cyprus in its capacity as the EU term president.
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