PRAGUE
Turkey’s sincerity to join the EU has been tested many times, Turkish Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek said Monday during his visit to the Czech Republic.
“Unfortunately, I must say that this is not a fair attitude,” Cicek told reporters in Prague, where he is on an official visit.
“We are aware of our deficiencies, and we are showing, as we will continue to show, intense efforts to fix them,” Cicek said. “Nobody should doubt this.”
Turkey applied for EU membership in 1987. Accession talks began in 2005.
Negotiations for Turkey’s EU membership bid hit a stalemate in 2007 due to issues pertaining to the island of Cyprus and the reluctance of German and French governments at the time.
Cicek also participated in an event, marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
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