Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland arrived in Ankara on Wednesday 3 August for two days of meetings with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdağ, the Speaker of the Turkish Parliament, Ismail Kahraman, and leaders of the opposition parties.
Speaking alongside Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu following their meeting earlier, the Secretary General said:
“There has been too little understanding in Europe about the challenges facing democracy and state institutions in Turkey after the outrageous coup attempt of 15 July.
“I fully understand that Turkey needs to investigate and prosecute those people who were behind the coup attempt, but this must be done in line with the European Convention on Human Rights and the case law of the court in Strasbourg.
“Turkey is very important to Europe, and Europe is very important to Turkey. We should do all we can to help Turkey deal with this very difficult situation in the best way possible.”
See also:
Turkey and the Council of Europe