Boris: I’ll back Turkey’s bid to join EU (now that we’ve quit)

... maybe now he’ll stop insulting the president!

BORIS Johnson pledged to help Turkey join the EU yesterday – as he made his first visit to the country since writing a crude limerick about its president.

The Foreign Secretary, who warned repeatedly about potential Turkish membership of the EU during the referendum campaign, said he was now determined to help make it happen.

At a press conference in Ankara, Mr Johnson said: ‘Britain will remain committed to helping Turkey’s path to accession (to the EU) in any way possible, because I believe that partnership is absolutely critical.’

His pledge comes despite the fact he placed the issue at the centre of the campaign to leave the EU, warning the accession of Turkey would give millions of migrants the right to live and work in the UK.

Mr Johnson angered the Turkish government in May this year when he published a satirical limerick about the country’s autocratic president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The limerick, which won a £1,000 prize put up by the Spectator magazine, described Mr Erdogan as a ‘w ***** a’ who had sex with a goat.

In July, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Mr Johnson needed to ‘make it up’ with the Turks. ‘May God help him and reform him,’ he said. ‘And I hope he won’t make any more mistakes and tries to make it up with the Turks.’

Mr Johnson, who met with President Erdogan yesterday, insisted the ‘trivial’ issue had not come up during talks.

He said instead, discussions had focused on issues such as the failed coup against Erdogan this summer, and the possibility of a post-Brexit trade deal.

‘What I hope for is a jumbo free trade deal between the United Kingdom and Turkey,’ he told a news conference with Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. ‘We are leaving the EU, but we are not leaving Europe.’

Mr Johnson also launched a bizarre charm offensive by heaping praise on his Turkish built washing machine.

‘We are lucky in the United Kingdom to be one of the biggest recipients of Turkish goods. I am certainly the proud possessor of a beautiful, very wellfunctioning Turkish washing machine, like so many other people in my country,’ he said.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s EU Affairs minister, Omer Celik, hailed Johnson’s Turkish roots, referring to him as an ‘Ottoman’ and a strong supporter of Turkey in the aftermath of its failed coup. Johnson’s great-grandfather, Ali Kemal, was an opposition figure in the late Ottoman period and was lynched during Turkey’s War of Independence in the early 1920s. ‘This is the land of my fathers, this very ministry is where my relatives used to work,’ he told the news conference.

The local administrator in the central Anatolian village of Kalfat, from where Johnson’s great-grandfather hailed, told Reuters he hoped the Foreign Secretary would someday visit his ancestral home. ‘There are several people in our village who resemble Mr Johnson both facially and physically. We call them the Sarioglan sulalesi,’ said Adem Karaagac, using a Turkish term that roughly translates as ‘yellowboy family’.

Karaagac said if Johnson visited, he could try the local ayran, a popular cold drink made from yoghurt. ÷Germany’s European Commissioner last night blamed Brexit on David Cameron’s ‘s**t campaign’ ahead of the referendum. Gunther Oettinger, who is a member of Angela Merkel’s CDU party, lashed out at the former PM, adding: ‘I’m sorry, that’s life and s**t happens.’

Speaking in Brussels, Mr Oettinger – who is responsible for the digital economy – said: ‘We have to accept the democratic decision and the s**t campaign of Cameron.’

Boris Johnson’s prize-winning limerick about President Erdogan (below) was a response to the leader’s efforts ‘Whoto prosecute a comic over an offensive poem. There was a young fellow from Ankara, was a terrific w ***** a Till he sowed his wild oats With the help of a goat But he didn’t even stop to thankera ‘May God reform him’