Erdoğan calls on EU to admit if it does not want Turkey

Via The Muffin Post

Today’s Zaman

Turkey’s prime minister said on Wednesday that the European Union (EU) should openly say that it did not want Turkey if the situation was so.

Premier Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on the EU not to keep Turkey waiting at the union’s door.

“They (EU member states) are making up some formulas to show that ‘they are not keeping as waiting’,” Erdoğan said during the 14th International Business Forum in İstanbul.

Referring to Turkey’s economy, Erdoğan said Turkey was among the countries that were affected the least by the global financial crisis thanks to structural reforms it had been implementing since the end of 2002.

Erdoğan said Turkey had overcome the global crisis with its own methods and resources, and did not need the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and sign the stand-by arrangement.

“Our debt to IMF was 23.5 billion USD eight years ago, but it is only 6 billion USD right now,” Erdoğan said.

Erdoğan said Turkey had grown 11.7 percent in the Q1 of 2010, which made it the fourth most rapidly growing economy in the world.

The premier said Turkey was ranked the third among the countries growing the most in Q2 with a growth rate of 10.3 percent.

Similarly, when unemployment was on the rise in the entire world, unemployment in Turkey was declining 2-2.5 points every month, Erdoğan said.

Erdoğan said international organizations had appreciated Turkey’s achievements, and Turkey had started to take its place among a few countries, the rating of which had been raised.

Turkey’s exports and tourism revenues were up in 2010, Erdoğan said.

Read more>>>

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian