Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is considering holding a referendum over accession talks for Turkey to join the European Union (EU).

"Right now we are holding a referendum on April 16 and after that we could choose to do a second one on the [EU] accession talks and we would abide by whatever our people would say there," Erdoğan said Saturday, according to Reuters.

Turkey, which is a NATO ally, began negotiations to join the EU in 2005.

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"Turkey has waited at the door [of the EU] for 54 years," Erdoğan said, referencing when Turkey joined the bloc's then-European Economic Community through the Ankara Agreement in 1963.

The United Kingdom held a referendum last year to leave the EU in a vote known as Brexit.