The European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has voted on the draft report on the 2016 Commission Report on Turkey.

Committee MEPs harshly condemned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his regime. The main message to Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party of Turkey (AKP) was that Turkey’s EU accession talks should be suspended if the proposed changes to the constitution go ahead.

The resolution on Turkey was adopted by 51 votes to three, with 14 abstentions. The full House is scheduled to vote on it during the next plenary session in Strasbourg in July.

One of the amendments calls on the Turkish government to respect and fully implement the legal obligations, which it has undertaken relating to the protection of cultural heritage, and in particular to conduct in good faith an integrated inventory of Greek, Armenian, Assyrian, and other cultural heritage that was destroyed or ruined during the last century.

It also calls on Turkey to ratify the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and to cooperate with relevant international organizations, especially the Council of Europe, in preventing and combating illicit trafficking and the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage.

Another amendment calls on Turkey and Armenia to work on the normalization of their relations and stresses that the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border could lead to improved relations, with particular reference to cross-border cooperation and economic integration.