Bulgaria Denies Backing Freeze of Turkey's EU Talks

Austria's Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz has said Bulgaria would insist for Turkey's EU accession talks to be frozen. File photo, BGNES

Bulgaria's Foreign Ministry has downplayed commens by Austrian top diplomat Sebastian Kurz, who earlier argued Sofia sided with Vienna on the need to freeze membership talks with Turkey.

Bulgaria's Position for the EU General Affairs Council on December 13, 2016 includes the argument that the process of Turkey's accession into the EU is "an important instrument of inflence and encouragement of the Europeanization of the country and should be saved," the ministry has said in a statement.

"Nothing in Bulgaria's position... gives any ground for conclusions toward an eventual Bulgarian support for freezing the negotiating process."

Membership talks with Turkey should be carried out according to the same procedure and under the same criteria that relates to all other candidate countries into accession talks.

Kurz argued on Monday that Bulgaria and the Netherlands had backed Austria to freeze the talks over Ankara's response to the military coup attempt in July.

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