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Erdogan: Turkey may hold Brexit-style referendum on EU …

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced plans to hold a Brexit-like referendum on whether Ankara should carry on with a process to join the European Union, amid strained relations with its western partners.

READ MORE: Red line must not be crossed: Germanys top judge on Ankara Nazi taunts

A new vote on the EU accession bid might be organized in Turkey after the April 16 constitutional referendum, which could give Erdogan new powers, the Turkish president announced Saturday.

Speaking at a Turkish-British forum in Turkey, Erdogan said Ankara might review its ties with the bloc, just as the UK did.

"You [Britain] have made a decision with Brexit... We have a referendum on April 16. After this, we may hold a Brexit-like referendum on the [EU] negotiations. No matter what our nation decides, we will obey it," Erdogan said, as quoted by Turkish Anadolu news agency.

He also harshly criticized a rally in Switzerland on Saturday where hundreds of pro-Kurdish supporters gathered in front of the Swiss parliament, carrying anti-Erdogan banners. The Turkish president warned that Europe's "bad manners" were testing his patience.

"It must be known that there is a limit to [Turkey's] patience with the attitude that European countries show us," Erdogan said.

Erdogans comments came a day after he vowed to review his country's political and administrative ties with the bloc, including a deal to curb illegal migration, as reported by Reuters.

READ MORE: You call me dictator, I will keep up Nazi taunts Erdogan

Erdogan has also previously hinted Ankara may reevaluate its relations with the EU if a constitutional referendum granting him additional powers passes on April 16. He said he would have more leverage when negotiating with Brussels on Turkeys accession to the EU, warning that "it will be a different Turkey" then.

Turkeys bid to join the EU has been stalled for decades, but the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe saw the 28-country bloc strike a deal with Ankara that included promises of visa-free travel for Turkish citizens and the acceleration of Turkeys EU bid. However, while Turkey insisted it has been keeping its side of the deal, stemming the refugee flow from Syria, it pointed out that the EU was not living up to its promises, leading to increasingly disgruntled and threatening rhetoric from Ankara.

The EU demands that Ankara must first meet a list of conditions before the visa-free regime or any further integration can be enacted. The bloc has been critical of the human rights situation in Turkey, which further deteriorated after the failed July 2016 coup. The suppressed coup attempt was followed by tens of thousands of people, ranging from soldiers to teachers, being arrested or fired from their jobs.

Ankara, however, has repeatedly rejected the EUs lecturing on human rights, in turn accusing Europe of violating the rights of Turks, such as in the case of the recent diplomatic spat over pro-Erdogan rallies canceled or prevented in Europe.

FOLLOW TREND: Turkey in political spat with EU countries over referendum rallies

March 31st, 2017

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Turkey’s Erdogan Threatens a Breakup With the E.U.

A "Yes" campaign billboard showing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on March 29, 2017. Turkey holds a referendum on constitutional amendments on April 16.Chris McGrathGetty Images

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is running out of insults. The Germans, he insists, are "Nazis" and the Dutch are "fascists," all because they blocked Turkish officials from campaigning in their countries for Turkey's upcoming referendum. More than 2 million Turks living in Europe are eligible to participate in the April 16 ballot that will determine whether Turkey should move from a parliamentary to a presidential system, giving Erdogan more power. Austria and Switzerland have also blocked Turkish rallies, angering Erdogan.

The E.U. has responded with caution to Erdogan's attacks, but its leaders might well find it ironic that these slights come from a man who rules under an extended state of emergency. More than 40,000 Turks have been arrested in response to the failed coup attempt in July 2016, and Turkey has become the world's biggest jailer of journalists as Erdogan cracks down on dissent.

Yet the E.U. continues to maintain the fiction that Turkey might one day gain membership to its club. To join, a would-be member must meet requirements in 35 areas, known as chapters. A unanimous vote of every E.U. leader is needed to open a chapter, and another to close it. In almost 18 years of formal candidacy, Turkey and the E.U. have opened 14 chapters. Just one has been closed.

If Turkey became a member, the E.U.'s borders would extend to Syria, Iraq and Iran. It's not hard to see why European voters wouldn't want that. Turkish membership would also allow 80 million Muslims to move freely across E.U. borders. That's hardly the direction European politics is headed.

Nevertheless, talks continue. E.U. officials say they want to encourage reform in Turkey, but there's little chance that Germany, France, Austria or Greece will allow it to join the bloc in the foreseeable future. Knowing this, Erdogan has moved Turkey toward a more autocratic kind of reform. Now the President, eager to impress Turkish voters with his defiance against a perceived global elite, is threatening to break off political ties with the bloc, and possibly abandon the E.U. bid altogether.

That should worry Europe, which has much invested in keeping the status quo. The E.U. is currently paying Turkey large sums to house Middle Eastern migrants rather than passing them along to Europe, with promises of more rapid accession to sweeten the deal.

But the charade that Turkey will one day join the E.U. is becoming increasingly transparent, with populist Islamophobes making inroads across the Continent. Europe's willingness to play this cynical game threatens to isolate further a country that E.U. leaders once hoped to reform.

March 31st, 2017

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Turkey set for close vote on boosting Erdogan’s powers, polls … – Reuters

By Ercan Gurses and Humeyra Pamuk | ANKARA/ISTANBUL

ANKARA/ISTANBUL Less than three weeks before Turkey votes on sweeping new powers sought by President Tayyip Erdogan, opinion polls suggest a tight race in a referendum that could bring the biggest change to the system of governance in the country's modern history.

Two senior officials from the ruling AK Party told Reuters that research it commissioned had put support for "yes" at 52 percent in early March, down from 55-56 percent a month earlier, though they expected a row with Europe in recent weeks to have fired up nationalists and bolstered their camp.

Turks will vote on April 16 on constitutional changes which would replace their parliamentary system with an executive presidency, a change Erdogan says is needed to avoid the fragile coalition governments of the past and to give Turkey stability as it faces numerous security challenges.

Publicly-available polls paint a mixed picture in a race that has sharply divided the country, with Erdogan's faithful seeing a chance to cement his place as modern Turkey's most important leader, and his opponents fearing one-man rule.

A survey on Wednesday by pollster ORC, seen as close to the government, put "yes" on 55.4 percent in research carried out between March 24-27 across almost half of Turkey's 81 provinces.

By contrast, Murat Gezici, whose Gezici polling company tends to show stronger support for the opposition, told Reuters none of the 16 polls his firm had carried out over the past eight months had put the "yes" vote ahead. He expected a "no" victory of between 51-53 percent, based on his latest numbers.

None of the polls suggest the 60 percent level of support which officials in Ankara say Erdogan wants.

"Right now we have not seen a result in our polls that did not show the 'yes' vote ahead. But we want the constitutional reform to be approved with a high percentage for wider social consensus," said AKP spokesman Yasin Aktay.

The wide disparity of the poll results is partly due to the political sympathies of Turkey's polling companies.

But it also reflects a sense that a section of the public remains undecided, including some AKP loyalists uncomfortable with too much power being concentrated in Erdogan's hands.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim held a meeting last week with former AKP ministers and officials, seeking to shore up wider support for the "Yes" campaign.

But former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu and former president Abdullah Gul, both high-profile members of the AKP who fell out with Erdogan, did not show up and were also absent from the AKP's campaign launch in late February.

"NO EARLY ELECTION"

Erdogan assumed the presidency, currently a largely ceremonial position, in 2014 after more than a decade as prime minister with the AKP, which he co-founded. Since then, pushing his powers to the limit, he has continued to dominate politics by dint of his personal popularity and forceful personality.

Critics accuse him of increasing authoritarianism with the arrests and dismissal of tens of thousands of judges, police, military officers, journalists and academics since a failed military coup in July.

With the constitutional overhaul, the president would be able to retain ties to a political party, potentially allowing Erdogan to resume his leadership of the AKP, a move that opposition parties say would wreck any chance of impartiality.

Abdulkadir Selvi, a pro-government columnist in the Hurriyet newspaper, said the latest numbers presented to the AKP headquarters showed the lead for the "yes" campaign widening, boosted partly by Erdogan's row with Europe.

Bans on some campaign rallies by Turkish officials in Germany and the Netherlands have prompted Erdogan to accuse European leaders of "Nazi methods".

"The stance of the Netherlands and Germany is expected to motivate nationalist voters at home and abroad and add 1-1.5 percentage points to the 'yes' vote," Selvi wrote on Thursday.

The constitutional changes envisage presidential and parliamentary elections being held together in 2019, with a president eligible to then serve a maximum of two five-year terms. Those elections could be called early if Erdogan wins the referendum, enabling him to assume full executive powers sooner.

But AKP officials said such a move was unlikely, citing concern that a slowing economy could weaken their parliamentary majority and pointing to voter fatigue after four elections in the past three years.

"Whether there is a 'Yes' or 'No' vote in the referendum, leaving this parliamentary majority to have another election does not make sense for us," a senior AKP official said.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun in Ankara, Daren Butler in Istanbul; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Gareth Jones)

BEIJING/WASHINGTON Beijing sought to play down tensions with the United States and put on a positive face on Friday as the U.S. administration slammed China on a range of business issues ahead of President Xi Jinping's first meeting with President Donald Trump.

ASUNCION Violent protests erupted in Paraguay's capital on Friday as the South American country appeared headed for a constitutional crisis after a group of senators voted behind closed doors for a bill that would allow President Horacio Cartes to run for re-election.

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Turkey set for close vote on boosting Erdogan's powers, polls ... - Reuters

March 31st, 2017

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Erdoan: ‘No more comfort for terrorists’ in Turkey – Yeni afak English

President Recep Tayyip Erdoan has vowed that terror groups would not find comfort in Turkey, stressing the government's commitment to counterterrorism in the southern part of the country.

Erdogan was speaking at a public rally in the southeastern Turkish province of Mardin on Thursday.

He said the government had launched a peace process to end the conflict with the PKK terrorist group in the region, but they could not understand it, they unfortunately detonated bombs, dug ditches".

They [the PKK terrorists] either return from this wrong way and surrender, or leave this soil," Erdogan added. Otherwise our soldiers, police and village guards will uproot them from this country."

In 2013, the government launched a solution process to end the decades-old conflict with the outlawed PKK, a dispute which has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people over more than 30 years in Turkey.

Erdoan said there was no discrimination between citizens in the state.

Don't allow anyone to enter between you and our state. The nation -- you -- are our only interlocutor until now," Erdogan added.

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Erdoan: 'No more comfort for terrorists' in Turkey - Yeni afak English

March 31st, 2017

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