"I don't think that Turkey will be able to have closer ties with the EU by violating fundamental rights; this is true for the Kurds but not them alone," he said in a speech at the European Parliament.

"These are problems that are the responsibility of the Turkish government," he said, adding that the EU has "laid out a framework of principles within which Turkey must operate."

Turkey was accepted in October as a candidate to join the EU but no guarantee was given that it will be made a member once it has undertaken reform to bring into line with the bloc, a process likely to take more than a decade.

The EU has long pressed Ankara to grant equal cultural freedoms to its large Kurdish minority -- estimated at about 12 million people -- as well as smaller, non-Muslim communities of Greeks, Armenians and Jews.