PACE president to visit Turkey for high-level meetings

Pedro Agramunt, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), is to meet with Turkish leaders during a series of high-level meetings in Ankara on Sept. 1-2, 2016.
According to a PACE press release, Agramunt will also attend a meeting of presidents of international parliamentary assemblies at the invitation of the speaker of the Turkish Parliament.
Agramunt will meet with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Edoğan, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. The PACE president will also have meetings with the leaders of the main political parties in Parliament and civil society representatives.
In its June session PACE decided to “closely follow” the situation in Turkey. The assembly underlined that the latest developments pertaining to freedom of the media and expression, erosion of the rule of law and human rights violations in relation to the counterterrorism security operations in southeastern Turkey “constitute a threat to the functioning of democratic institutions and the country’s commitments to its obligations towards the Council of Europe.”
The assembly resolved to closely follow the situation in the country on the basis of information provided by its Monitoring Committee. Turkey has been under post-monitoring dialogue with the assembly since 2004.