Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan campaigning ahead of local elections in which he lost control of Ankara and Istanbul | Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images EU official urges Turkey’s Erdoğan to respect election results ‘That is democracy,’ says Frans Timmermans.

The European Commission's first vice president, Frans Timmermans, has called on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to respect the results of local elections that saw his ruling party lose control over Ankara and Istanbul.

"Turkey has been moving away from European values ​​at great speed in recent years. We hope that this will not be made worse by the fact that the [ruling Justice and Development party] AKP doesn't respect the election results," the Dutch Commission official told Welt Am Sonntag in an interview published Saturday.

In local elections last Sunday, Erdoğan's conservative AKP lost control in several key cities including Ankara, the capital, and the country's largest city, Istanbul. The party said soon after the vote that it would contest the results, lodging appeals for elections in a number of cities, provincial capitals and districts.

Parties have the right to call for election results to be checked if they have legitimate doubts, Timmermans told the German newspaper. "But it is important that the Turkish authorities can independently verify the election result and that the AKP finally recognizes the result," he said. "That is what we expect, because that is democracy."

By voting for parties that support embracing European values, the country's citizens have sent the government a clear signal, Timmermans said. "Erdoğan must acknowledge that and try to bring his policies closer to European values."

Breaking off talks with Turkey over its accession to the EU would be a mistake and a "disappointment" to pro-European forces in the country, Timmermans, who is the center-left Party of European Socialists' pick for Commission president in the European election in May, also told the paper.

"I know Turkey is lightyears away from the EU. But locking the door now and locking it completely by breaking off accession negotiations is not in the interests of the European Union," he said.