BRUSSELS: Turkey will close the door on joining the European Union if it adopts constitutional changes backed at a referendum last week, a leading member of the EU parliament responsible for dealings with Ankara said on Wednesday.
Kati Piri’s comments come a day after President Tayyip Erdogan told Reuters Turkey will not wait at Europe’s door forever and could walk away from EU accession talks if rising Islamophobia and hostility from some member states persist.
The Dutch center-left lawmaker, who is “rapporteur” on Turkey, told reporters ahead of a plenary debate on relations with Turkey that if Erdogan pushed through all the changes, which enhance his own powers, then the EU should formally suspend long-stalled talks on membership.
“As Turkey with such a constitution cannot become an EU member, it also doesn’t make sense to continue discussions on accession,” said Piri, echoing a number of other leading figures in the legislature, which last year passed a non-binding resolution calling for a suspension of the process.
On Monday, the EU executive’s commissioner responsible for membership applications, Johannes Hahn, called on EU foreign ministers to consider ending Turkey’s accession process when they meet in Malta on Friday.
Like Hahn, Piri suggested that Brussels could step up talks on enhancing the customs union which Turkey already has with the EU over the next two to three years. She said that process could also give Europeans leverage to persuade Turkey to reverse policies which EU leaders say are undermining Turkish democracy.
Turkey can’t join EU with new constitution -lead EU lawmaker
Turkey can’t join EU with new constitution -lead EU lawmaker
Protesters try to attack driver after truck speeds through anti-Iran demonstration in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES: Los Angeles police responded Sunday after somebody drove a U-Haul box truck down a street crowded with marchers demonstrating in support of the Iranian people, causing protesters to scramble out of the way and then run after the speeding vehicle to try to attack the driver.
The U-Haul truck, with its side mirrors shattered, was stopped several blocks away and surrounded by police cars. ABC7 news helicopter footage showed officers keeping the crowd at bay as demonstrators swarmed the truck, throwing punches at the driver and thrusting flagpoles through the driver’s side window.
The police department confirmed its officers were on the scene but didn’t immediately say if anyone was arrested.
Two people were evaluated by paramedics and both declined treatment, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
Several hundred people had gathered Sunday afternoon in the Westwood neighborhood to protest against the Iranian theocracy. The LA police department eventually issued a dispersal order, and by 5 p.m. only about a hundred protesters were still at the scene, ABC7 reported.
Activists say a crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran has killed more than 530 people. Protesters flooded the streets in Iran’s capital of Tehran and its second-largest city again Sunday.
