NICOSIA, 14 September 2005 — Turkey’s European Union entry talks should go ahead on Oct. 3 as planned, the EU’s Enlargement chief said yesterday, despite a warning by Cyprus that it might block the talks over Ankara’s refusal to recognize it. “I am confident that the member states will agree on a counter-declaration and on the negotiating framework so that talks can start on Oct. 3,” Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told EU lawmakers.

Envoys of the 25-member EU are due to discuss a statement in Brussels today to counter Turkey’s July 29 declaration refusing to recognize Cyprus, which is represented in the EU by the Greek Cypriot government based in the capital Nicosia. Member states are working on a “road map” for Turkey’s entry talks. France’s Foreign Ministry said it and other states wanted to include a “rendezvous clause” in the road map under which Ankara’s progress toward recognizing Cyprus would be evaluated.

“We are in fact insisting that there be a ‘rendezvous clause’ in 2006,” Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Denis Simonneau told a regular news briefing in Paris. He said recognition was not a precondition for entry talks, however, and France would not block their Oct. 3 start. France had earlier agreed to a formula proposed by the British EU presidency that would make recognition of all EU states a “prior condition for accession” rather than being required sooner in the negotiating process, as Nicosia wanted.

Cyprus warned earlier yesterday that it might block the start of entry talks. “If there is no agreement it means there is no agreement on (Turkey’s) EU negotiation mandate, and that naturally means that accession negotiations will not start on Oct. 3,” Cypriot government spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides told state radio. But asked if Nicosia was preparing to use its veto, held by each EU member, Chrysostomides said: “Nobody said there is the intent to exercise a veto.”

EU diplomats dismissed the comments as targeted to a domestic audience. But they said a Greek-Cypriot veto would kill off any prospect of the island.