EU minister says Turkey will not change its anti-terror law

EU Affairs Minister Volkan Bozkır has criticized the EU's stance to force Turkey for a change in terror legislation to lift visa restrictions for Turkish citizens.

“The terror law is not a part of this process. We did not receive any request to make chage in this legislation during our talks. EU's move to add this into the key conditions of the agreement has drifted the process to a critical point,” Bozkır told reporters in Strazbourg.

“We would never attempt to change terror law in the presence of suicide bombers are killing hundreds of innocent people in our several provinces and our soldiers are becoming martried. 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.

The EU and Turkey reached a historic deal on the migrant crisis on March 18. Under the agreement, the EU requested that Turkey host refugees whose asylum claims are rejected in Greece. In return, Turkey demanded 3 bn-euro migration fund, visa-free travel for its citizens, and acceleration of talks for its integration into the 28-nation bloc.

“As long as our country fight against terrorism bot at home and abroad, it is cerainly impossiple to revise the current practices and the law on terrorism,” Bozkır said.

EU officials say that Ankara must meet five crucial political and technical standards, outstanding from 72 criterias. The freedom of speech, the right to a fair trial, to revişe terror law and to protect minority rights are among the points that EU has wanted Ankara to meet by the end of June.

“Turkey will revise all these standarts if there has been no valid reason to prevent progress in this process. Every point including refugee deal, new chapters for Turkey's accession into EU and delay into granting of 3million Euros to Turkey in return for Turkey's acceptance refugees will be revised,” Bozkır explained. EU officials say Turkey must review its terror legislation for 75 million Turks can get visa-free travel to 26 countries of Schengen zone by the end of June.

Ankara insists that any request for a change in terror law is “unacceptable” in no way. Authorities in Turkey stress that adopting strict terror laws is a “must” to counter the threat of Daesh and PKK terror.