EU's New Rapporteur to Turkey: Situations of Demirtaş, Kavala Have to be Resolved

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EU's new Turkey rapporteur Nacho Sanchez Amor has made a series of visits to Turkey in İstanbul, Antep and the capital Ankara.

He met with Parliamentary Speaker Mustafa Şentop, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Justice Minister Abdullah Gül, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, representatives of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and the İYİ (Good) Party, the mayors of İstanbul and Antep, Ekrem İmamoğlu and Fatma Şahin, Mardin's dismissed mayor Ahmet Türk, along with civil society organization representatives, journalists, academics, and businesspeople.

Şentop and the Amor met in Şentop's office in a closed-door meeting that lasted nearly an hour, the speaker's office stated.

Following the meeting, Amor visited sections of the Turkish parliament bombed during the coup attempt on July 15, 2016.

He made the following remarks:

"I think we all could comprehend in what a tense situation a country could be after a coup attempt," he told AFP, referring to the failed overthrow of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government in July 2016.

"But I've always asked my interlocutors: 'When are you coming back to the normality? When are you overcoming this tense situation, this polarised situation... considering that you finally won your battle against the plotters?

"Some situations, like the Demirtaş situation, the Kavala situation have to (be resolved)," Amor said.

"This is a good occasion to send some messages to Europe: 'Ok we are overcoming the situation, we are coming back to normality'." (DB/VK)