By Gareth Jones
TURKEY yesterday appeared to dash hopes of any swift progress over the future of Cyprus ahead of a planned dinner last night between the island’s rival leaders.
In a toughly-worded speech in Brussels, Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz criticised the EU’s policy of negotiating with the Greek Cypriots and of refusing contact with the Turkish Cypriots and said this was sure to lead to “confrontation”.
Yilmaz also said he expected EU leaders to send a signal to Turkey at their summit next week in Laeken, Belgium, that they are serious about Ankara’s own bid to join the wealthy bloc.
“This stance of the EU (on Cyprus) cannot pave the way for a permanent peace… It is rather an invitation to confrontation,” Yilmaz said.
“It is our sincere wish to reach a settlement but this cannot be reached on the basis of Greek Cypriot domination,” said Yilmaz, stressing the need for strict equality between the two communities despite the Greek Cypriots’ numerical advantage.
The EU would prefer to admit Cyprus as a reunited island but says a settlement cannot be a precondition for accession. That would give Turkey, the only country to recognise the Turkish Cypriot state, an effective veto over Cyprus’s accession.
“This (position) is an extremely dangerous enterprise which could destroy strategic stability in the Mediterranean region and may well destroy the whole spectrum of our relations with the EU,” said Yilmaz, who is also minister for European affairs.
Yilmaz’s comments, made during a lunch hosted by Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Stiftung think-tank, were likely to disappoint observers looking for signs of a softening in Turkey’s position after Tuesday’s landmark meeting of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders, the first in four years.
At that meeting, President Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash agreed to hold face-to-face negotiations in mid-January on ending the island’s 27-year division.
Clerides also accepted an invitation to dine with Denktash last night in what will be his first visit in decades to the occupied north of the island.
Yilmaz said the Greek Cypriots would not engage in “serious discussions” on the island’s future if they were guaranteed EU membership and were allowed to speak for the whole island.
Cyprus is expected to close accession talks with the EU by the end of next year, opening the way for its full membership by 2004, probably with up to nine other, mostly ex-communist east European states.
Turkey has threatened to annex the occupied north if Cyprus joins the EU without an agreement. Conversely, EU member Greece has said it will block EU enlargement altogether if Cyprus is not in the next wave of candidates.
Yilmaz said Turkey remained committed to the economic and political reforms it has to make in order to be able to begin its own EU accession negotiations.
But he said the EU’s approach to Turkey, a strategically vital NATO ally, lacked “political vision”.
Yilmaz said next week’s EU summit in the Brussels suburb of Laeken should “demonstrate the commitment of the EU to our membership process”. He called for a deeper political dialogue and greater financial cooperation but gave no details.
“2002 will be a critical period in our relations with the EU. We can either make the accession process irreversible or we can undermine the process as a whole,” he said.
