Turkey to develop policies in line with Erdoğan's direction

Turkish foreign ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgiç said on Monday that Ankara will develop polices for a visa-free agreement with the European Union (EU) in the context of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's recent comments on the issue.

In a routine press briefing on the recent developments, Bilgiç said Turkey will develop all necessary policies for its citizens' visa-free travel to Europe but underlined that the polices will be carried out in line with Erdoğan's statements last week.

In a speech in Istanbul on Friday, the President slammed EU for demanding Ankara that change its terrorism laws when the country faced internal and external terrorism.

He called on the EU not to support the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorist organization, which is embroiled in conflict with Turkish security forces in the southeastern part of the country.

Erdoğan said that Turkey would go its own way regarding its counter-terror fight and hinted that Ankara would not modify its anti-terror law.

In a recent remark Erdoğan also said that Turkey had been left alone in its fight against Daesh while the country had inflicted the heaviest price on the terror group.

Foreign ministry official Bilgiç said that the policies for Turkey's path to visa liberalization would be fixed with these perspectives.

He also said that Turkey has so far readmitted 386 refugees, including 14 Syrians, from the Greek Islands under the EU-Turkey refugee deal.

In a return, a total of 125 Syrian refugees have been resettled in Europe from refugee camps in Turkey.