Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested Turkey could hold a referendum over whether to continue its long-stalled accession process to join the European Union.
Angrily lashing out at the bloc's treatment of Ankara, Erdogan said Turkey could hold a referendum along the lines of that in Britain, where voters are deciding Thursday whether to stay in the European Union or leave.
"We can stand up and ask the people just like the British are doing," Erdogan said in a speech late Wednesday after breaking the Ramadan fast, quoted by the state-run Anadolu news agency.
"We would ask 'Do we continue the negotiations with the European Union or do we end it?' If the people say 'continue', then we would carry on," Erdogan said.
He accused the Eu of not wanting to accept Turkey as a member as it is a "Muslim-majority country".
Erdogan said Turkey had been promised membership in 1963 but 53 years later nothing had happened. "Why are you stalling?" he asked.
It was in 1963 that Ankara and Brussels for the first time inked an association agreement stating that Turkey would aim to be a member of the bloc.
