First, this news item from Turkish publication, Hurriyetdaillynews:

Turkey must be within EU: Former Spanish PM

ISTANBUL-Anadolu Agency

Turkey must be within the EU, it would be marvelous for the stability, peace and cultural diversity, the former Spanish prime minister said on Nov. 27.

 

“Turkey is a significant power and it has a high capacity for bringing the west and the east together,” former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told the 10th Bosphorus Summit in Istanbul.

 

He said Turkish people experienced some disappointments but they should get closer to the EU.

All countries should make efforts for the peace settlement, and the current positions of the global powers are worrying, he noted.

“We should resist the nuclear armament as all countries, we cannot take chances,” the former minister added.

Saying that the east and the west should be balanced, he noted that summits such as G20 and Bosphorus are positive steps in this process.

 

Improvements in technology, communication and transportation devices are significant leverages for development, he added.

 

He also said improving communication among people brings successful results.

The three-day Bosphorus Summit, organized by the International Communication Platform under the auspices of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, is held between Nov. 27-29 with the theme of “Towards a New World Order”.

 

Top Turkish and foreign officials, high-level business people, academics and experts attend the summit for addressing trending topics such as trade issues, changing world order, digital transformation and defense industry.

Now lets have a look at who this former Spanish PM is exactly:

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

[…]

Zapatero attended his first political rally, organized by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) in Gijón in 1976. Some political parties had been legal since 21 July 1976, but the PSOE was not legalized until February 1977. The speech of Felipe González, the PSOE leader and future Prime Minister of Spain, who took part in the rally, exerted an important influence on Zapatero. He said, among other things, that “the Socialists’ goal was the seizure of power by the working class to transform the ownership of the means of production” and that “the PSOE was a revolutionary party but not revolutionarist or aventurist […], as it defended the use of elections to come to power”.

^[15] Zapatero and his family had been traditionally attracted to the Communist Party as it was the only party really organized before Francisco Franco‘s death in 1975.^{[citation needed]} But, after the famous political rally in Gijón, they, and especially Zapatero, started to believe that the Socialist Party was the most probable future for the Spanish left.^[16] At that time the Socialist Party was rebuilding its infrastructure in the province of León after having been outlawed following the Spanish Civil War.^[17]

In 1977, the year of the first democratic elections after Franco’s death, Zapatero supported both the Communist and Socialist parties. He pasted posters of both parties.^[16]

He eventually joined the PSOE on 23 February 1979. The impression Felipe González had caused on him in 1976 played a fundamental role in his decision to join the party. In 1979, during the Congreso Extraordinario del PSOE (1979), the PSOE had renounced Marxism as its ideological base. He said nothing about joining the party at home, because he was afraid his parents would discourage him, considering him too young to join a political party.

In 1982, Zapatero became head of the socialist youth organization in the province of León. In July 1982, he met Felipe González at the summer school “Jaime Vera” and suggested that he make a “left turn” in the PSOE political program for the General Election of October 1982.^[18] González answered advising him to abandon his conservative (traditional for PSOE [leftist]) viewpoint.^{[citation needed]}

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