Turkey will keep moving towards EU, says minister

Turkey’s minister for European affairs insisted Thursday that Europeans would not deter his country from its decades-long bid to join the EU despite the obstacles on its path.

“No country faces as many impediments, as many challenges and difficulties as my country” in its bid for EU membership, Egemen Bagis said in Bucharest, citing, among others, visa requirements and a slow negotiation process.

“Those politicians around Europe who think that by making these difficulties they can make Turkey go away are dead wrong,” Bagis said at a conference on Turkey and the EU in the Romanian capital.