European Council: Remarks by the High Representative / Vice-President Josep Borrell upon arrival

01.10.2020
Brussels

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This is going to be a very busy [European] Council. We have important issues on the agenda.

The most important ones are the relationship with Turkey and the sanctions regarding Belarus.

We have been working very much in recent times to put on the table a set of sanctions against Belarus, and I hope that the leaders will be able to overcome the difficulties in order to have the required unanimity.

With Turkey, I have said many times that we are in a watershed moment. We have to decide the future of our relationship with Turkey, trying to avoid escalation of the conflict on the delimitation of waters and taking very much into account the relationship that we have with Turkey from many points of view. There also the guidance from the leaders will be very important for the Foreign Affairs Ministers to continue working on a comprehensive approach to the relationship with Turkey.

We are going to talk also about the situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh, but the most important things will be how we deal with the sanctions on Belarus and how we deal with our relationship with Turkey and overcome important difficulties that we have had recently.

Link to the video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-195886  

Peter Stano
Lead Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
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Zoi Muletier
Press Officer for Neighbourhood and Enlargement/Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
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+32 (0)460794306