Erdoğan slams EU for prolonging Türkiye’s EU accession

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has criticized the European Union for prolonging Türkiye’s accession process without reason.

“We perfectly know the reason why the EU is keeping Türkiye away from its doors for almost 60 years while accepting countries which can compete with us in terms of economic and democratic standards,” Erdoğan said in his address at the graduation ceremony of the War Academy in Istanbul late on Aug. 31.

Türkiye has been a candidate country to the EU since 1999 and negotiating for the accession since 2005. But the accession process has been stalled in the past years.