Erdogan criticizes EU for its attitude towards Turkey

BUDAPEST - Visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized here on Thursday the European Union (EU) for its attitude towards Turkey, which he termed as "far from constructive," during a joint press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

"Recently, the EU's attitude toward our country has been far from constructive," Erdogan said, adding that in his opinion the EU also has failed to keep its word and failed to give Turkey as much money to hold back the flow of refugees as it had promised.

"Some 3.6 million Arabs and nearly 300,000 Kurdish refugees are currently in Turkey, and many of them want to move on to Europe," he warned, adding that "due to the cooperation we have stopped the crowd so far."

The Turkish president said he highly appreciated that Hungary has always supported his country's accession to the EU.

Orban said it is not possible to stop the flow of migrants to Europe without Turkey.

"Hungary's foreign policy is based on the assumption that migration to the EU cannot be stopped without Turkey. As a result, Hungary is a strategic partner for Turkey, which has already stopped 350,000 illegal migrants this year alone," he said.

Since 2013, Orban and Erdogan have met on an annual basis to discuss security issues -- both countries are NATO members -- and to assess the development of economic and cultural ties.