Turkish EU Affairs Minister Volkan Bozkir’s statements at the European Parliament on the issue of free visas for Turkish nationals traveling in the EU raised concerns that the EU-Turkey refugee deal could be in jeopardy. ‘The disagreement with the EU comes at a very dangerous time’, said Bozkir in response to European Parliament President Martin Schultz’s decision to block the process of free travel visas. The Turkish official said that his country had worked hard to implement most of the 72 preconditions emanating from the deal, adding that it was not an issue of math but a political one, implying that the remaining 5 conditions Turkey had to fulfill were the most thorny ones. ‘There are many different ways to interpret expectations’, he said referring to visa free travel of Turks in the EU, adding that a political approach best captured the essence of the matter. ‘Turkey has sufficiently fulfilled the prerequisites for the liberalisation of visas to proceed in the Parliament’, he said. On the matter of the revision of the anti-terrorist laws in Turkey, another condition the country must meet in order to gain the free visas, Bozkir underlined that given the rise in terrorist attacks in his country it could not change. During a joint press conference Martin Schultz said international agreements do not fall through so easily and appeared optimistic that Turkey would not allow the flow of refugees across the Aegean to rise again. Martin Schultz made it clear that lifting travel visas for Turkish national was currently not an option until Turkey had met all the of the 72 requirements as set out in the recent refugee agreement between the EU and Turkey. On the revision of the anti-terrorist laws in Turkey, Schultz said it was too broad and it could be used to violate freedom of speech and press.