Turkey criticizes EU's court's ruling on visa waiver

Turkey Tuesday strongly criticized the European Court's ruling that excluded Turks from a visa waiver to the European Union (EU) countries, a demand Ankara has been requesting for a long time. The court's decision is "absolutely unjust" and contradicts with negotiations between Turkey and the EU regardling the visa waiver between the two sides, Minister of EU affairs Egemen Bagis said in a statement. Bagis, Turkey's chief negotiator with the EU, said the European Court's decision was "politicized," and raised doubts on EU's seriousness to proceed with negotiations which aimed at exempting Turkish nationals from entry visa requirement, just like other candidate countries. He criticized some EU countries, which he did not name, of influencing the court's decision. Turkey, he added, would deal with these countries. Turkey and the EU commission have recently agreed to speed up negotiations over exempting Turkish citizens from entry visa requirement. But the court's ruling raised doubts over progress of accession negotiations, already dominated by lack of trust.