Turkey and the EU: The end of the affair?
The European Parliament will vote this week on whether to suspend Turkey's talks on joining the EU, and the Turkish government is giving a good impression of looking the other way.
"Turkey should feel relaxed about the EU and not be fixated about joining it," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the weekend.
Instead he repeated his idea of joining Russia and China in the Eurasian security group Shanghai Co-operation Organisation. "Why shouldn't Turkey be in the Shanghai 5?" he suggested.
Turkey's long journey towards the European Union has never been a bed of roses; rather a bumpy road of twists and turns.
Ever since the 1960s it has aspired to be part of the bloc, officially applying to become a member in 1987. It was not until 2005 that accession talks actually started.
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