German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, talks through an interpreter to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, during the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul on May 23, 2016.
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Merkel also said she regretted that “the process of rapprochement and reconciliation with the Kurds was aborted in the past year”.
“I can sum it up by saying that these issues remain on the table, and we need to keep an eye on further developments”, Merkel said.
“In Syria and elsewhere hospital and medical centres being bombed, people are losing their lives”, she said. But she also underlines her commitment to an EU-Turkey deal aimed at stemming Europe’s migrant influx amid rising tensions with Ankara.
In his first speech Yildirim said the time has come for the European Union to be clear about Turkey’s membership process.
The approval on Friday by Turkey’s parliament to strip its members of immunity came as Erdogan seeks to prosecute members of the pro-Kurdish HDP, parliament’s third-biggest party.
The visit comes as Erdogan shores up his power.
Horst Seehofer, leader of the CSU, the sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democrats, said Sunday that the pact had “mixed up things that have nothing to do with each other” by linking the refugee issue with Turkey’s bid to join the European Union and visa-free travel. Merkel said Turkey should meet the requirements set in 2013 before the bloc could grant it visa-free travel.
“One should never allow oneself to beblackmailed”, Seehofer said.
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In an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on Sunday, Merkel discussed the refugee issue.
