European Union leaders plan to discuss arms exports to Turkey with NATO allies and separately with the United States, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after Greece continued to push for an arms embargo on Ankara, Reuters reports.
Angela Merkel spoke after a two-day EU summit in Brussels at which the bloc's 27 leaders agreed to prepare limited sanctions against Turkish citizens over a dispute with Greece and Cyprus over energy exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean, but postponed tougher steps against Ankara until March.
"We also discussed how the issues of arms exports should be discussed in NATO. We said that we want to coordinate our actions with the new US administration regarding Turkey, " Merkel said at a press conference following the EU Council meeting.
The EU and NATO plan to hold a summit with us President-elect Joe Biden after he takes office in January, the British news Agency said.
The EU exported only 45 million euros ($ 54.5 million) worth of weapons and ammunition to Turkey in 2018, according to the EU Statistics service (Eurostat), but sales of European-made combat aircraft totaled several billion euros.
According to the Stockholm international peace research Institute (SIPRI), a leading think tank on conflict and armaments, the US, Italy and Spain were the top arms exporters to Turkey in 2015-2019.
