“No EU cooperation with Turkey on Defence and Security as long as it does not respect our common values, the borders of all Member States, democracy, the rule of law, human rights, international treaties and the international law of the sea”, said Nicolas Faradouris, Member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Security and Defence and Member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Security and Defence, from the floor of the Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Security and Defence in Europe.

Amid political turmoil and unresolved issues, Athens and Ankara had been working toward scheduling the Supreme Cooperation Council (SCC) meeting and a Mitsotakis-Erdoğan summit for late April. However, recent developments in Turkey, including the arrest of Imamoglu and rule-of-law violations, have created a new reality, making the outcome uncertain.

In a new bill filed in the US House of Representatives, Congressmen Gus Bilirakis and Bran Schneider are asking the State Department to change the categorization of Turkey and move it from the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs to the Bureau of the Middle East.