Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was warmly welcomed by Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda today in Warsaw during his first official visit to an EU country following the coup attempt in July 2016, AFP reported.

Erdogan visited Belgium in May for a meeting of NATO and Hamburg for a G20 summit in July, but Poland is the first EU country to invite him to visit in the framework of bilateral relations, following persecution in Turkey against suspects in coup.

Poland supports Turkey's bid to join the EU, Duda told journalists after a meeting with the Turkish president. Ankara's EU accession talks, launched in 2005, are at a dead end. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has recently called for a halt to the talks, but most of the other EU countries still prefer to maintain this fragile relationship, despite concerns over some actions of the Turkish regime.