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OTTAWA — Turkey has been knocking on Europe’s door for nearly 50 years, with little success.

Unlike some more recent entrants to the world’s largest bloc of nations — Poland, which joined in 2004; Bulgaria and Romania, which joined in 2007; and now Croatia, the most recent member, joining in 2013 — the region’s sixth largest economy and 17th biggest in the world remains outside of the European Union looking in.

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Even as its neighbour and centuries-old adversary, Greece — an EU member since 1981 and part of the eurozone for the past 14 years — threatens to scrap its monetary membership amid renewed talks to resolve its sovereign-debt crisis, Turkey’s decades-long push to join the coveted regional club is at a standstill.

Never mind that Turkey became a member of the International Monetary Fund in 1947, gained a seat at the Council of Europe in 1949, was accepted into NATO in 1952 and this year holds the presidency of the Group of 20 industrialized nations. Turkey joined the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1961.