Papandreou: no enlargement without Cyprus

GREECE cannot approve any future European Union expansion if it does not include Cyprus, Foreign Minister George Papandreou was yesterday quoted as saying.

Athens expects its other EU partners to respect an accord that the island will be able to join regardless of whether its political division is settled.

“The Greek parliament has sent us the message that it cannot ratify expansion without Cyprus. There is the Helsinki (EU summit) decision, and we are just asking that decision be upheld,” Papandreou told Ta Neanewspaper.

A diplomatic wrangle on Cyprus is looming as it races through preparations for EU membership. If its entry is blocked, Greece will halt eastward expansion, but if it does become a member Turkey has said it may annex the occupied north — effectively dashing its own membership hopes.

Papandreou has been walking a diplomatic tightrope in pursuing better relations with long-standing rival Turkey on a raft of other issues as the Cyprus conflict simmers.

The decades-old logjam could come to a head towards the end of 2002, when the EU is widely expected to announce which countries are to be included in enlargement.

Ankara has admitted for the first time that the Cyprus situation is a problem, Papandreou said.

“It now acknowledges it exists, it does not try to hide it. Previously it would say there was no problem,” he said.

Settlement talks have been at a standstill for a year amid demands by Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash to be regarded as equal to Glafcos Clerides, president of the internationally-recognised government of Cyprus.

Denktash last week invited Clerides to hold face-to-face talks to head off a crisis. The Greek Cypriots said they would agree to a meeting on condition Denktash also returned to UN talks he halted last year.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.