Post-Turkey polls, UK seeks continued close association

Britain looks forward to continuing its close association with Ankara following the result of Sunday’s Turkish elections, a top British diplomat said on Monday.

Speaking on arriving in Luxembourg for the EU Foreign Affairs Council, Sir Alan Duncan, the Foreign Office minister for Europe and the Americas, said the U.K. seeks to continue working with Turkey “very closely.”

With almost all the votes counted, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won an absolute majority in the presidential election with 52.5 percent of the vote. In the parliamentary polls, the People's Alliance of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) won 53.6 percent of the votes.

“The United Kingdom looks forward to continuing its close association with Turkey following the result of the elections yesterday and we will continue to work very closely with them as we have done since the day of the attempted coup,” Duncan said.

“Clear election result in Turkey,” Duncan also tweeted.

Duncan was the first high-level European visitor to Ankara following the July 2016 defeated coup.

On a recent visit to London, Erdogan praised Britain’s “sincere solidarity,” saying: “We will never forget the solidarity shown with our country.”

“I especially thank Alan [Duncan] very much for this,” Erdogan said, adding that British officials showed a pro-democracy stance by firmly rejecting the vile coup attempt, while many other Western countries failed to even condemn it.