Turkey, EU have mutual interest in positive agenda: German envoy

A positive agenda adopted by the EU Council in December is in the mutual interest of both Turkey and the European Union, the German envoy in Ankara has said, stressing that Brussels was open and ready for talks with Turkey to develop relations further and resolve existing conflicts.

Jürgen Schulz, Germany's Ambassador to Ankara, explained Berlin's views on Turkey-EU ties and evaluated the current climate on the bilateral relationship in an exclusive interview with the Hürriyet Daily News.

Schulz welcomed the resumption of the Turkish-Greek exploratory talks after nearly a year-long tension in the eastern Mediterranean in which Germany played an important role in de-escalating the tension as the EU term president.

First of all, thank you very much for this interview, Mr. Ambassador. My first question is in the scope of the relations between Turkey and the European Union. Shortly after you arrived in Ankara last summer, your country got the helm of the EU term presidency and had to deal with the tension in the eastern Mediterranean. From the point of view of the German diplomacy, how would you evaluate the six months that were marked by the difficult mediation of the situation between Greece and Turkey, which roots in highly complex historic problems?

In the second half of last year, Germany held the presidency of the European Union. During this time, we worked very hard to strengthen relations between the EU and Turkey. Turkey is an important partner for us, and we have every interest in having good relations based on mutual trust. At the same time, during this period, tensions were high in the eastern Mediterranean, and we, as an EU member state, share the con-cerns of our EU partners, Greece and Cyprus. Against this...