Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan | Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images Erdoğan backs referendum on EU membership talks Europe needs to ‘make up its mind’ on Turkish accession, president says.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday said Turkey could hold a referendum on whether to continue talks on EU membership.

Erdoğan said Europe needed to "make up its mind" on Turkish accession and suggested that a referendum be held "after the end of this year," Reuters reports.

Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini on Monday said his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told him the EU "is not popular at the moment [in Turkey]" and "Turks feel betrayed."

At a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday, Austria's Sebastian Kurz reiterated his call to stop accession talks with Turkey.

“Personally I am against continuation of accession talks, this Turkey does not have a place in the EU,” he told journalists ahead of the meeting at which the situation in Turkey was the first point on the agenda.

But he added that it was “up to heads of state and government to decide on end-of-accession negotiations, they are not here today.”

Ministers discussed the situation in the country after a failed military coup in July and the subsequent crackdown on suspected opponents, journalists and judges.

Last week the Commission published a report on Turkey stressing that Ankara must halt the “backsliding” on human rights and democracy since the failed coup. The 28 European Union countries, after talks lasting several days, last week hammered out a common statement on their concerns about developments in the country.

No decision on accession was expected from Monday's meeting. “This is not what the foreign ministers will discuss.” Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign policy chief, told reporters.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in August said that Turkey "cannot be a member of the European Union in its current state" and warned that negotiations would be stopped if it decided to reinstate the death penalty.

Erdoğan on Monday said he would back reinstating the death penalty if parliament passed a law on it, and said that could also be part of a referendum.

Accession negotiations with Turkey started in 2005, but certain negotiating chapters have not been opened because of concerns about the rule of law.