YEREVAN, MARCH 26, ARMENPRESS. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz condemned Turkey’s military operations in Syria and urged the EU to stop that country’s accession talks, Sputnik News reports.

“The talks on membership between the European Union and Turkey should be ended taking into account the systematic violations of human rights and essential democratic values, and because the Copenhagen Criteria [rules defining if the state is ready to join the European Union] are not implemented anymore”, Kurz said in an interview to the Welt magazine.

But the Austrian Chancellor added that Turkey still remains the EU’s key strategic partner with which the cooperation should continue within the policy of good neighborliness.

English –translator/editor: Aneta Harutyunyan