EUROPARL: Ukraine, IS are priorities, says Theocharous

Cyprus MEP Eleni Theocharous (EPP/DISY) said that the priorities of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee are the crisis in Ukraine, as well as the worrying developments in Iraq and the establishment of the Islamic State.
Addressing the first of six press briefings where the Cypriot MEPs will present their goals for the next five-year term in Parliament following their election last May, Theocharous said that on the EU-Turkey dialogue the prospects are grim, following an EPP resolution and the position of the new Commission President Jean Claude Juncker, who supports no new enlargement in the next five years.
The MEP also referred to a recent meeting she had with Turkey’s ambassador to the EU, Selim Yenel, with whom she raised the issue of the Turkish President’s statements regarding the intensification of settlement activity in the occupied areas in the north of Cyprus.
Theocharous said that she told Yenel that the continuation of Ankara’s policy vis-à-vis Cyprus does not serve Turkey’s European aspirations.