TURKISH Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Ankara does not intend to recognise the Republic of Cyprus only 24 hours after a top EU enlargement official said it must if it wished to join the bloc.
Amid veiled threats from the Greek Cypriot side to veto a date for the start of Turkey’s accession talks at the EU summit on December 17, Gul warned EU leaders that it would reject everything except full membership.
Asked by the Turkish daily Zaman, whether recognition would be forthcoming for the Republic of Cyprus, Gul said: “No, no. We have already done our part in a very courageous manner.”
Gul was referring to Turkish acceptance of the Annan plan, which was rejected by Greek Cypriots.
He said Turkey was not willing to accept any compromise proposals as far as membership talks were concerned. “For us, negotiations mean negotiations for full membership. No other alternative is possible for us,” he told Zaman.
Greek Foreign Ministry spokesman George Koumoutsakos, responding to Gul’s comment yesterday said; “The non-recognition of an EU member by a candidate country is a political and institutional absurdity and this absurdity should be lifted.”
Only 24 hours before, during Britain’s House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Pierre Mirel, Director of the Enlargement Department of the European Union, said that Cyprus was one of the 25 member states that will be giving its vote and that it would not do so unless it was recognised by Turkey.
”Ι can not but feel that the Council can not accept a partner which does not extend its Customs Union to include the Cyprus Republic,” Mirel said.
Similar sentiments were expressed by Britain’s Minister for Europe Denis MacShane in an interview with CNN Turk’s Mehmet Ali Birand yesterday. MacShane said he did not suppose Turkey would reject the normalisation of relations with an EU member state.
MacShane also said he had not heard the word ‘veto’ used either by the Cyprus government or the Greek government during his recent contacts in the region.
He said he found curious the insistence of a candidate country in not recognising a member of the bloc. When Birand pointed out that it was the Turkish side that had accepted the Annan plan, MacShane said that if Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash had not been rejecting a solution for years, the Cyprus problem would have been solved two years ago.
It was Denktash that walked out of talks at the Hague in 2003, when there was a good chance that the then government of Glafcos Clerides might have been willing to sign.
Papadopoulos urged Greek Cypriots to vote ‘no’ to the plan in April and wants changes. His position drew strong criticism from the international community, which had managed to sideline Denktash during the talks leading up to the referendum.
Mirel said there had been “extreme disappointment and frustration” over the outcome of the referendum and that the view in Europe was that the Greek Cypriot leadership would work for a positive response.
”We felt they did not make enough effort”, Mirel said.
Asked whether Papadopoulos was against the Annan Plan as a whole, Mirel said: ”I would leave that to history”.
