Turkey's embattled Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Brussels late Monday, hoping to put his country's EU accession talks back on track amid upheaval at home over highly contested judicial reforms.
Erdogan's trip to Brussels -- his first in five years -- has been overshadowed by a graft scandal and his government's subsequent mass purge of police and the judiciary, which critics see as a bid to stifle the investigation.
Some 2,000-3,000 supporters of the Turkish prime minister gathered in front of a Brussels hotel as he arrived there, waving Turkish flags in a festive display.
The crowd dispersed calmly before midnight, police said, after Erdogan had addressed them.
Before boarding his flight to the Belgian capital Erdogan sought to downplay the risk of a crisis with the European Union.
European officials have voiced deep concern about the state of democracy in Turkey and the independence of its institutions after the government, facing its worst crisis since coming to power over a decade ago, moved to tighten its control on the judiciary in the wake of a vast corruption probe.
Erdogan insisted 2014 would be a "turning point" in Turkey's relations with the EU, after the resumption of membership talks late last year following a three-year freeze.
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