ANKARA, 26 March 2005 — The European Commission and Turkey have agreed on the text of an accord on Cyprus, the signing of which is a condition for opening accession talks with Ankara later in the year, a Turkish official said yesterday. The protocol would extend an already-existing Turkey-EU customs union to 10 new members who joined the bloc last May, including Cyprus whose internationally-recognized Greek-Cypriot government Ankara refuses to endorse.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the two sides had agreed on the terms of the protocol. Turkey was now waiting on Brussels to send the draft to Ankara for final approval, the first step towards the formal signing of the document. “If the text is in the form that has been agreed, we will go ahead. There is no foot-dragging on our side,” the official said.
The European Union wants Turkey to sign the protocol by Oct. 3 when it is set to open accession talks with the mainly Muslim nation. Ankara has pledged to ink the protocol in time, but maintains that the move will not amount to formal recognition of the Greek-Cypriots. Ankara recognizes the breakaway Turkish-Cypriot republic in the north of the long-divided island and insists that it would recognize the whole of Cyprus only after the partition of the island is resolved.
The pro-settlement Turkish-Cypriot Prime Minister, Mehmet Ali Talat, predicted yesterday that the international community would step up efforts for the resumption of peace talks between the Turkish and Greek sides of Cyprus after the Turkish-Cypriot presidential elections on April 17.
“We hope there will be important progress before Turkey starts (EU accession) negotiations,” Talat told a conference in Istanbul, Anatolia news agency reported. “If the Cyprus problem is not resolved by Oct. 3, it will be more difficult for Turkey because it will confront the Greek-Cypriots at every stage afterwards, he said.
Ankara also favors the revival of peace talks in Cyprus in the hope that a settlement to the three-decade conflict will rid it of what it considers Greek-Cypriot efforts to use Turkey’s EU bid to extract concessions from Ankara.
Shortly before their entry into the EU last year, the Greek-Cypriots rejected an UN reunification plan, even though the Turkish-Cypriots gave it overwhelming support. Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkey seized the north in response to an Athens-engineered coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece.
Also yesterday, Romanian Foreign Minister Razvan Ungureanu held talks with Turkish officials on the two countries’ efforts to join the European Union and ways of enhancing bilateral economic ties. “We would like to benefit from Romania’s experience on EU issues. We had very fruitful discussions on that,” Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told a joint news conference with Ungureanu. Romania, along with Bulgaria, hopes to join the EU in 2007, while Turkey is set to begin accession talks on Oct. 3. The Romanian minister said his country was ready to help Turkey’s accession process.
