Egemen Bagis, Turkish Minister for European Union and Chief Negotiator, said at the Yalta European Strategy Conference chaired by Presidents Victor Yanukovych (Ukraine) and Dalia Grybauskaite (Lithuania) that Turkey may never become a member of the EU, Kommersant reports.
Turkey became an associated member of the EU in 1964. It started the membership talks in 2005. The European Commission published a report on chances of states to become EU members in October 2012. Turkey was put on the very bottom of the list of states bidding for the membership due to the unsettled Cyprus conflict and violations of human rights.
Bagis expects Turkey to end up with the status of Norway, a country that never got full membership of the EU, but a full-fledged member of the European single market.
