Ankara believes that French President Emmanuel Macron fails to “understand” the realities facing Turkey.

Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy stated about the aforementioned, after Macron called for Turkey’s membership talks with the European Union (EU) to be dropped and condemned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s anti-Brussels vision, according to the Daily Express.

Macron said his Turkish counterpart had a “pan-Islamic project,” which he described as “anti-European,” and whose measures he said go against the EU’s values and principles.

Also, the 40-year-old French leader said that the Turkey of Erdoğan is “not the Turkey of President Kemal,” referring to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who founded the secular Turkish republic in 1923, following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.