Turkey in the Council of Europe

Last updated
Turkey–Council of Europe relations
Flag of Turkey.svg
Turkey 		Flag of Europe.svg
Council of Europe

Turkey is a member of the Council of Europe. [1] [2] Membership is obligatory for joining the European Union. As of 2025 more than a third of the cases pending at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) are about Turkey. [3] While Turkey officially has diplomatic relations with 44 the Council of Europe member states, it does not have diplomatic relations with 2 the Council of Europe member states (Armenia and Cyprus).

Contents

History

Turkey officially exited the monitoring process in 2004 when it began accession negotiations with the European Union. In 2017, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) unanimously put Turkey back under monitoring due to setbacks in democracy, human rights, the rule of law, freedom of expression, and judicial independence. [4]

In 2025 the commissioner for human rights complained about lack of progress in the Osman Kavala v. Türkiye , Selahattin Demirtaş (no.2) v. Türkiye and Yüksekdağ Şenoğlu and Others v. Türkiye cases. [5]

Turkey's opposition to NATO membership of two the Council of Europe member states

In May 2022, Turkey opposed two the Council of Europe member states, Finland and Sweden, joining NATO because according to Turkey, they host terrorist organisations which act against Turkey (including the PKK, KCK, PYD, YPG and Gülen movement). [6] Turkey urged the countries to lift their arms embargo on Turkey, not to support the organizations, and to extradite members of the Gülen movement and PKK from the two member states. In May 2022, Turkey requested the extradition of members of the Gülen movement and PKK from the two member states, but this was rejected. In May 2022, Turkey quickly blocked two the Council of Europe member states Finland and Sweden from starting their NATO membership applications. On 18 May 2022, Turkey asked the two member states to end their support for PKK, PYD, YPG and the Gülen movement and to stop their activities. On 28 June 2022, Turkey signed the tripartite memorandum with Finland and Sweden at the Madrid summit in Madrid, Spain. In July 2022, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that if the two the Council of Europe member states (Finland and Sweden) do not extradite alleged members of the Gülen movement and the PKK, they will not approve the NATO membership of the two countries. Turkey called on two the Council of Europe members, Finland and Sweden, to fulfill their commitments in the tripartite memorandum. Turkey asked the two member states to end the Kurdish demonstrations. Turkey asked the two member countries to end what it said was Islamophobia and to stop the burning of the Quran. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] While Finland was given NATO approval by Turkey in March 2023, the Turkish parliament did not accept Sweden's application to join NATO until 23 January 2024.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Council of Europe".
  2. ↑ "Home - Council of Europe Programme Office in Ankara - www.coe.int". Council of Europe Programme Office in Ankara. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
  3. ↑ "PENDING APPLICATIONS ALLOCATED TO A JUDICIAL FORMATION".
  4. ↑ "Turkey's EU bid in jeopardy after Council of Europe vote". Euractiv. 25 April 2017. Archived from the original on 25 April 2017. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  5. ↑ "Türkiye: Authorities should ensure the implementation of human rights standards on freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association".
  6. ↑ "Erdogan says Turkey not supportive of Finland, Sweden joining NATO". reuters. 13 May 2022. Archived from the original on 2022-05-13. Retrieved 2022-05-16.
  7. ↑ "Turkey says Sweden, Finland reject extradition requests for PKK, Gulen-linked suspects". Xinhua. 16 May 2022.
  8. ↑ "Türkiye'den Finlandiya ve İsveç'e 10 maddelik manifesto". www.haber7.com (in Turkish). May 18, 2022.
  9. ↑ "Türkiye, İsveç ve Finlandiya'ya teröristlerin iadesi için yazı gönderdi". ensonhaber.com (in Turkish). July 6, 2022. Archived from the original on November 13, 2022. Retrieved November 14, 2022.
  10. ↑ "Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan: İsveç ve Finlandiya'nın NATO üyeliğinde duruşumuz çok net". aa.com.tr (in Turkish). July 18, 2022.
  11. ↑ "Türkiye'den İsveç ve Finlandiya'ya NATO üyeliği için 10 şart". tgrthaber.com.tr (in Turkish). June 8, 2022. Archived from the original on November 14, 2022. Retrieved November 14, 2022.
  12. ↑ "İsveç ve Finlandiya'ya 10 şart". www.yenisafak.com (in Turkish). June 8, 2022. Archived from the original on November 15, 2022. Retrieved November 15, 2022.
  13. ↑ "Turkey parliament backs Sweden's Nato membership". BBC News. 2024-01-23. Archived from the original on 23 January 2024. Retrieved 2024-01-23.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.