REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BRUSSELS -- European foreign ministers will urge Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Monday to respect the law and human rights in dealing with defeated coup plotters but have limited leverage over their strategic neighbour.
Diplomats said an EU line on Turkey would be agreed after ministers breakfast in Brussels with US Secretary of State John Kerry. He shares concern over Erdogan's authoritarian turn and will discuss Turkey's role as an ally in Syria, in facing off with Russia and as gatekeeper on a migrant route to Europe.
What was to be a routine if busy meeting, to address before the summer break such simmering crises as Ukraine and Libya, African migration and the China's maritime expansion, has been swept into a perfect storm as three major developments battered Brussels' agenda in 48 hours on successive days last week:
-- The accelerated formation of a new British government under Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday and her choice of Brussels-baiting journalist and Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson as foreign secretary. He will brief uncomfortable counterparts on how Britain, one of the EU's two main military powers, may cooperate on foreign policy once it leaves the Union. It will be the first high-level EU meeting for one of May's new ministers.
-- The killing of 84 people by a Tunisian-born local man who ploughed a truck along the seafront at Nice as France celebrated Bastille Day on Thursday, claimed by Syria-based Islamic State.
Ministers will observe a minute's silence for the victims and discuss, after the third major Islamist attack in France in 18 months and four months after bombers struck Brussels itself, how to cooperate against radicals at home and IS in the Middle East.
-- And finally, on Friday, the military coup that crumbled when Erdogan rallied his supporters onto the streets and secured the loyalty of a greater part of the security services.
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