Turkey's Erdogan, EU chiefs meet to mend eroded ties
VARNA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday meets the leaders of the EU'S top bodies for a potentially stormy encounter that will seek ways to repair an increasingly fractured relationship.
European Union President Donald Tusk and European Commission chief Jean-claude Juncker will talk with Erdogan at the Bulgarian Black Sea resort of Varna with a litany of problems clouding their discussions.
Topics including the crackdown in Turkey after the July 2016 failed coup, Turkish demands for visa liberalisation and the near-endless saga of Ankara's own EU membership bid are expected to loom high.
And while all the leaders were hoping at least a more harmonious mood music would come out of the working dinner, a row over Greece and Cyprus added a new shadow days before the talks.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, said it was expected to be "a very difficult meeting".
But both sides -- with a joint interest in improving security cooperation and economic relations -- will also not want the talks to fail. "The Varna summit will provide a platform to re-launch the dialogue between the two parties, even though no real breakthrough is expected in concrete terms," said Jana Jabbour, professor of political science at Sciences Po university in Paris and the author of a book on Turkish foreign policy.
Temperatures were raised after EU leaders last week condemned Turkey's "illegal actions" towards Greece and Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea.
Ankara hit back at the "unacceptable comments" and said the EU had lost its objectivity on Cyprus, which is divided between the Greekmajority internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus and the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north. The statement on Thursday by the 28 EU members meeting in Brussels condemned Turkey over Ankara's arrest of two Greek soldiers and its promise to prevent the Greek Cypriot government from exploring for oil and gas.