Erdoğan, Merkel join hands to save Turkish-EU visa-free deal

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held face-to-face talks on Ankara's concerns about the visa-free deal with the EU, on the sidelines of the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul.

agreed on holding further talks on visa-free travel deal between Turkey and the EU ,which will consider Turkey's priorities in terror threat.

Talks between Merkel and Erdoğan come nearly two weeks after Turkey strongly criticized the EU's push to revise its terror law for lifting visa restrictions.

This meeting may bring Turkey closer to its bid to get a better response to allow its citizens visa-free travel within Europe.

EU officials say Turkey must review its terror legislation for 75 million Turks to get visa-free travel to the 26 countries of the Schengen zone by the end of June.

Ankara insists that any request for a change in terror law is “unacceptable.” Authorities in Turkey stress that strict terror laws are a “must” to counter the threat of Daesh and PKK terror.

Earlier in May, a senior cabinet member hinted that the visa-free travel deal between Turkey and the EU may be in danger of falling apart in a strong salvo to the authorities in EU capitals.

"The terror law is not a part of this process. We did not receive any request to change this legislation during our talks. EU's move to add this into the key conditions of the agreement has brought the process to a critical point,”

told reporters in Strasbourg on May 12.

"We are not going to chance the terror law at the cost of not being granted visa-free travel inside EU's Scengen zone,” he asserted.

Monday's talks also centered on the ongoing war in Syria, the refugee crisis and ongoing efforts against terrorist networks. The two leaders said further cooperation is needed to resolve the migrant crisis.