Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu | Win McNamee/Getty Images Turkey threatens EU refugee deal over visa lag Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu threatens to sever agreement before the end of the year.

Turkey could pull out of its refugee deal with the European Union this year if visa-free travel for its citizens is not introduced soon, the country's foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, warned in an interview published Thursday.

"Our patience is running out," Çavuşoğlu told German newspaper Neuen Zürcher Zeitung. "We are waiting on an answer [on visa liberalization] in the coming days. If we don't get one, we'll terminate the agreement."

In March, Turkey agreed to take back refugees from Greece. In exchange, the European Union committed to speeding up the lifting of visa requirements for Turkish citizens traveling to the bloc. But the EU made visa liberalization conditional on Turkey meeting certain benchmarks, including changing its anti-terror law, which EU officials say is too broad and has too often been used to stifle opposition and critical media. The European Commission said in September that Turkey had not made any progress on meeting the outstanding benchmarks.

Çavuşoğlu said Turkey had upheld its end of the bargain while the EU was holding up progress.

Asked how long the country was prepared to wait, Çavuşoğlu said, "We will not wait until the end of the year."

"We have changed many things in the past 14 years, under recommendations from the EU," Çavuşoğlu said. "But when other European countries sharpen their anti-terror laws and Turkey is told to soften its own stance, our people would see this as a weakening of our fight against terrorism."

Separately, Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Işık announced Wednesday that construction had resumed on a wall along the country's 900-kilometer border with Syria to stem the tide of illegal crossings.

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