Turkey cancels PACE lawmaker’s visit to country

Turkey’s government cancelled the visit of German lawmaker of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Bernd Fabritius to the country, Deutsche Welle reports. In November 2016 PACE authorized Bernd Fabritius to depart for Turkey ‘to examine the country’s commitment to the principles of the legal state’.

Fabritius had already planned a number of meetings, including with the Justice Minister and President of the Constitutional Court of Turkey. However, after the PACE decision to degrade Turkey’s status to ‘under monitoring’, official Ankara cancelled the lawmaker’s visit. “I accept this step with pain and urge the Turkish government to refrain from its decision on cancelling the visit,” he said.

PACE degraded Turkey’s status to ‘under monitoring’.113 delegates of various countries of PACE voted in favor of the decision, 45 voted against and 12 abstained.The monitoring status for Turkey was removed in 2004.

The PACE decision mentions for continuing cooperation with Turkey it is necessary that the country fulfils the proposals. PACE rapporteurs Marianne Mikko and Ingebjørg Godskesen strictly criticized Turkey’s decisions in the state of emergency conditions, which has been extended for three times already after the attempted coup. They mentioned it damages the democratic institutions of Turkey.