Turkey's Foreign Ministry fired back at the European Union this week after the EU published a "Common Understanding" doc...

Turkey's Foreign Ministry fired back at the European Union this week after the EU published a "Common Understanding" document on July 15, 2026, that included pointed references to Turkey's conduct in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Cyprus dispute. Ankara's Foreign Ministry spokesman Oncü Keçeli dismissed those references as "baseless" and accused the EU of approaching the relationship without strategic thinking or fairness. Keçeli argued the document completely ignores Turkey's status as an EU candidate country and was deliberately drafted to overshadow what Ankara described as a historic NATO Summit in Ankara, where Turkey's role in the alliance was, according to Keçeli, reaffirmed as irreplaceable. Turkey has leaned heavily on that summit as proof of its indispensable standing in Western security architecture. On Cyprus, Ankara repeated its long-standing position that the Greek Cypriot side is solely responsible for the deadlock in reunification talks. The Turkish spokesman pointed specifically to the Greek Cypriot rejection of the UN's Annan Plan in 2004 and the collapse of the 2017 Cyprus Conference as evidence of that claim. Neither incident was acknowledged in the Turkish statement as having any Turkish or Turkish Cypriot role in those failures. Turkey closed its statement by calling on the EU to adopt what it described as "a realistic vision and rhetoric aligned with the interests of both sides." The EU document, meanwhile, has not yet drawn a formal response from EU officials regarding Turkey's objections. The Annan Plan rejection in 2004 was put to a public referendum, where the Greek Cypriot population voted against it by roughly 76 percent, while the Turkish Cypriot community voted in favor by about 65 percent. #Cyprus #Turkey #EasternMediterranean