Ecevit: EU enlargement hinders Cyprus solution

TURKISH Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said yesterday that European Union efforts to reunite Cyprus were instead hampering the peace process and said a Turkish Cypriot state on the island was essential to Turkey’s security.

Diplomatic efforts to bring together the divided island have intensified as the Cyprus government nears EU membership in the first wave of enlargement in 2004.

But ahead of a key meeting next week between President Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, Ecevit has hardened Turkey’s stance by saying that giving up Northern Cyprus would be like giving up Turkish soil.

“If the EU would leave us one-on-one, leave us alone, the two societies, the two nations, would emerge easily from the Cyprus issue,” Ecevit told members of his Democratic Left Party.

Next week’s meeting will be the first face-to-face between Clerides and Denktash since 1997 UN-brokered proximity talks broke down late last year after the Turkish leader demanded he be treated as Clerides’ equal.

“The continuing existence of the TRNC is not only important to Turkish Cypriots’ security but to Turkish security,” Ecevit said, adding the planned Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline made securing the region even more essential.

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.