Newly appointed British FM reaffirms his country's support for Turkey's EU bid

Britain’s newly appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs William Hague, has said his country will continue to strongly support Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. Hague wrote an article for Europe’s World, a tri-annual Europe-wide policy journal, to be published in June, in which he discussed how the new British government saw its EU policy. “The case for Turkey’s accession to the EU is as strong as ever,” he stated, adding that its membership would bring certain benefits to the 27-member bloc. “As well as offering considerable mutual economic benefits and profoundly strengthening the EU’s security of energy supply, Turkey’s membership would refute those who claim that there is a clash of civilizations between the West and Islam, and would make Turkey an ideal interlocutor between Europe and the Middle East,” he wrote for the summer issue of the journal, to which various European politicians, including heads of state, have contributed in the past.