President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has shrugged off the the European Parliament's decision to request the suspension of EU accession talks with Turkey. In a BBC interview on July 11, he said: “If the EU, bluntly says 'We will not be able to accept Turkey into the EU,' this will be comforting for us. We will then initiate our plan B, and C.” He added that: “The European Union is not indispensable for us. The majority of Turks do not want the EU anymore.”

Following Erdogan’s visit to the EU in May, the EU presented Turkey with a 12-month plan to improve ties. But less than two months after Erdogan’s visit to Brussels, the European parliament adopted a resolution on July 7, calling for the suspension of accession talks with Turkey if the government in Ankara implements constitutional changes approved in a contested referendum in April, which granted sweeping powers to President Erdogan. The European Parliament’s decision prompted strong reaction from Ankara. “We reject it. The call by the European parliament to suspend talks is a political decision,” Turkey’s EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik said.

Turkey applied for EU membership in 1987 and was declared an eligible candidate in 1999. Formal accession negotiations started in 2005, but talks have stalled over the past couple of years as the pace of reforms in Turkey has slowed.

"Despite all this we will continue being sincere with the EU for a little more time. We will see what that brings for us,” Erdogan told the BBC.

During the interview, Erdogan dismissed claims that Turkey has jailed more than 100 journalists. He said that only two people with press cards are in prison.

“No-one is jailed because of journalism. Those people who are in jail - they have no title as journalists. Some of them collaborated with terror organisations; some of them were jailed for possession of a firearm. Some of them were jailed for vandalising ATM machines and robbing them,” according to Erdogan.

“Opposition journalists write a lot of insulting articles about me. Even recently they did it during [the opposition leader’s] march, Those insulting articles are still out there,” he said.

Ankara’s relations with the bloc soured during the April referendum campaign in Turkey when Erdogan threw "Nazi" jibes at Germany and the Netherlands after local authorities in those countries refused to allow Turkish ministers to attend pro-Erdogan rallies to address expatriate voters.