EU Commissioner for neighbourhood, enlargement visits Turkey

ANKARA

EU Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi is paying his first visit to Turkey on Sept. 6-7.

The commissioner had a meeting with Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.

They discussed Turkey-EU relations in detail, Çavuşoğlu tweeted after the meeting.

Varhelyi then visited a migrant health center in Altındağ district of the capital Ankara, financed under the EU Facility for Refugees in Turkey (FRIT II).

Ankara and Brussels have revitalized discussions since early 2021 after a one year-long strain over the search for hydrocarbon reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Turkey urges the bloc for membership negotiations to be restarted, the Customs Union be updated, the March 18 Agreement and visa liberalization, in particular, be put into effect in its entirety.

Turkish and European officials have over the last couple of years carried out talks on revising the Customs Union which had been stalled as a result of political tensions.