Turkey tells EU to honour its word on visa liberalisation

The European Union should grant Turkish nationals visa-free travel in October or else Turkey will put aside a deal to stem the flow of refugees to the bloc, Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told a German newspaper.

Çavuşoğlu said that the European Union was "belittling" Ankara, and reiterated his government's demand for visa-free travel in exchange for stemming the refugee flow, Çavuşoğlu told Bild newspaper.

"The Turkish people are traumatised by the failed putsch of July 15," Çavuşoğlu said, referring to last month's effort to topple the democractically elected Turkish government by a junta connected to US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen.

"Rather than helping Turkey, (European nations) are belittling us."

Asked whether hundreds of thousands of refugees in Turkey would head to Europe if the EU did not grant Turks visa freedom from October, he said: "I don't want to talk about the worst case scenario - talks with the EU are continuing but it's clear that we either apply all treaties at the same time or we put them all aside."

Turkey has rejected EU criticism that the purges might violate rights norms Ankara must meet under the agreement in return for visa-free travel and accelerated negotiations for bloc membership.

Çavuşoğlu said that Turkey has made intense efforts, "like few other nations, to fulfil the conditions of accession to the EU".

"In return, Turkey has received only threats, insults and a total blockage from the EU," he said.

"I ask myself, what crime have we committed? Why this hostility?"

"It is clear: either we apply all the agreements together, or we set them all aside," Çavuşoğlu said in response to a question on whether Turkey would allow hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees to try to reach Greece from its shores.

On May 4, 2016 the European Union proposed granting Turkish citizens visa-free travel to the bloc from late June.

Visa-free access to the EU - the main reward for Ankara's collaboration in choking off an influx of migrants into Europe - has been subject to delays due to a dispute over Turkish anti-terrorism legislation and Ankara's crackdown against the coup plotters.