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FRANCE-TURKEY-DIPLOMACY-ERDOGAN
Erdogan seeks reset with Europe on Paris visit
PARIS, Jan 5, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
travels to Paris on Friday for talks with France’s Emmanuel Macron aimed at
improving relations with Europe, after a war of words in 2017.
The lunch and talks at the Elysee Palace are expected to take in Syria and
EU-Turkey relations, but Macron is also expected to voice concern over
Erdogan’s post-coup purges.
The visit to France will be Erdogan’s first since the botched July 2015
putsch and one of only a handful to Europe since the attempted army takeover.
In an interview with France’s LCI television on Thursday, he said he had
got off to a “very good start” with France’s new leader.
But in an interview with Le Point magazine in August, Macron listed “having
to talk to Erdogan every 10 days” as one of the drawbacks of the job.
The invitation to the Turkish strongman, who has presided over the arrest
of tens of thousands of officials, academics, journalists and activists, has
drawn criticism on the French left.
The Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said she was “concerned” about
the state of “human rights and local democracy in Turkey”.
The French presidency has however insisted on the need to “maintain
dialogue” with Ankara without “covering up differences of views.”
Macron and Erdogan already met at a NATO summit in Brussels and at the UN
General Assembly in New York in September, and held telephone talks leading
to the release of two French journalists held in Turkey.
Macron has said he will also bring up the plight of jailed Turkish
reporters during Friday’s talks.
Amnesty International, whose Turkey head Taner Kilic has been jailed, said
Macron should “strongly remind (Erdogan) that human rights defenders are not
terrorists.”
High on the agenda will also be Turkey’s relations with the EU, which
Ankara has sought to join for the last 50 years in an epic membership saga
that appeared to hit the buffers amid bitter rows in 2017.
– ‘Essential partner’ –
The purges carried out by Turkey in the wake of the coup bid have dealt the
biggest blow yet to its ambition of joining the European Union.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been particularly condemnatory of the
crackdown.
But Macron has stressed the need to avoid a breakdown in communications
with a country he calls an “essential partner” on conflicts, including Syria,
where France is seeking to play a greater role.
Speaking to LCI, Erdogan — who is trying to mediate in Syria alongside
Russia and Iran — reiterated his position that President Bashar al-Assad
should stand down.
France has taken a similar line but has appeared to be less unbending on
that condition of late.
Hosting Erdogan forces Macron, who has attempted to boost France’s standing
on the European and world stages, to again walk a diplomatic tightrope.
He has already met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the former royal
palace of Versailles near Paris and took US President Donald Trump for dinner
at the Eiffel Tower.
BSS/AFP/RY/08:20 hrs