EU parliament calls for freeze on Turkey's membership talks

The European Union should formally suspend Turkey's negotiations to join the bloc, EU lawmakers said on Wednesday in a symbolic rebuke of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who Western governments accuse of widespread abuses of human rights.
Forging a common European Parliament position on Turkey's long-stalled EU bid, lawmakers voted 370 in favour and 109 against, with 143 abstentions, for an official freeze of the membership process, which would jeopardise some EU funding. EU governments have the final say in any suspension.
"Sitting in a cell for 17 months without knowing what you are being accused of, that is reality in today's Turkey," Kati Piri, a Dutch centre-left EU lawmaker who sponsored the non-binding resolution, told the plenary in Strasbourg.
She accused Erdogan of a "witchhunt against his critics", referring to what the EU says is a crackdown on...