May urges Erdogan to heed human rights in crackdown

Britain and Turkey sign £100m fighter deal in her first visit

ANKARA // British prime minister Theresa May urged Turkey to respect human rights in its crackdown after a failed coup last year.

In her first visit to the country, Mrs May held three hours of talks with president Recep Tayyip Erdogan after travelling to Ankara from a meeting with the new US president Donald Trump in Washington.

She said after the talks that she was proud Britain had stood with Turkey’s democratically elected government during the July 15 coup attempt.

But she said: “Now it is important that Turkey sustains that democracy by maintaining the rule of law and upholding its international human rights obligations, as the government has undertaken to do.”

About 43,000 people are under arrest on charges of having links to the coup bid, which Ankara blames on preacher Fethullah Gulen, who lives in exile in the US. He denies the charges.

Mrs May sought to strike a balance between echoing western concerns over Turkey’s crackdown and seeking greater economic ties as her country prepares to leave the EU.

She announced the creation of a joint group to “prepare the ground for our post-Brexit trading relationship” and oversaw the signing of a fighter jet deal.

The deal is for Britain’s BAE Systems to develop Turkey’s new TF-X fighter jet in partnership with state-owned Turkish Aerospace Industries.

The prime minister’s office said the agreement would initially be worth £ 100 million (Dh460.8m) but could pave the way for further deals worth billions of pounds over the next 20 years.

“We both want to build on our existing links, and I believe that doing so will be to the benefit of both of our countries and for the prosperity of both our nations,” Mrs May said.

Mr Erdogan said the two sides were looking to increase annual trade from US$15 billion (Dh55bn) to $20bn. Mr Erdogan and Mrs May also discussed the battle against extremists in Syria and efforts to reunify Cyprus, where Ankara and London are guarantor powers, as well as aviation security.

“I am pleased with the steps we have taken and I believe in the continuation of this success in the future,” he said.

Turkish prime minister Binali Yildrim later announced that Turkey and the UK planned to sign a free-trade deal when Britain left the EU.

Mrs May has said her government would trigger Britain’s exit from the EU in March and the process is expected to take at least two years.

Her visit to Ankara was the first by a major western leader since the coup attempt, although former US vice president Joe Biden held talks with Mr Erdogan in August. In the UK, some MPs had urged Mrs May not to let her focus on trade overshadow human-rights concerns over the coup clampdown in Turkey.

“The Conservative Brexit government is so desperate for trade deals with anyone but the mature democracies of the European Union that even the most unsavoury rulers are to be subjected to the prime ministerial charm,” opposition Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Olney wrote in The Guardian newspaper.