PRESIDENT Tassos Papadopoulos repeated yesterday that Turkey must fulfil its obligations to the EU under the customs union protocol as a BBC analysis warned that Ankara was heading for a clash with the bloc over the issue.
Speaking at Larnaca airport yesterday before his departure for Brussels, Papadopoulos was commenting on statements by Turkish Prime Minster Tayyip Erdogan on Monday that Turkey had no plans to open its ports and airports to Greek Cypriot traffic as provided for under the protocol
Turkey says it would comply with the protocol if the EU agreed to end the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots. However the opening of ports and airports to the Greek Cypriots is part of the customs union protocol Ankara signed in relation to the ten new member states, including Cyprus.
Papadopoulos said it was up to the EU to push Ankara into complying when it publishes its annual review of Turkey’s progress in the Autumn.
Referring to Erdogan’s comments he said: “There is no embargo against Turkish Cypriots in any field, there are restrictions in the goal of the Turkish Cypriot administration to behave or participate as a separate state. Difficulties are self-imposed by there own policy.”
“Turkey has explicit obligations towards the EU, which it has accepted and signed, and it is up to the EU, when it reviews Turkey’s progress regarding the implementation of these obligations in 2006, at the end of the year, to decide how it will address the whole situation,” he added.
An analysis on BBC on Tuesday said the EU’s membership negotiations with Turkey have barely started “but already worries are surfacing in Brussels and London that they could collapse within months.”
“What is driving such fears of an early breakdown? The answer is Cyprus,” the report said.
BBC analyst Kirsty Hughes, a former senior fellow of the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels said the EU has been playing a difficult juggling act with both Turkey and Cyprus, “but it may be about to drop some of the balls.”
Hughes said negotiations were due to start within weeks on the first two “chapters” – research, and education. EU diplomats are relatively upbeat, despite concerns on freedom of expression and freedom of religion, she said.
“However, the scene looks set to darken this autumn,” Hughes added.
“Unless Turkey opens its ports it will fail a review of its compliance with the customs union and its bilateral relations with other member states, due this autumn.”
The review was agreed by the EU last September under pressure from France and Cyprus. But Hughes said that even Britain, one of Turkey’s strongest supporters in Europe, says Turkey has to give in on the ports question, in order to pass.
The BBC report quotes Turkey’s ambassador to the EU, Volkan Bozkir, as saying the issue was a political one, not simply a question of implementing the customs union. “Unless political circumstances are altered, it will be difficult for any move on that particular field,” he said.
But Cyprus’s permanent representative to the EU, Nicos Emiliou, said the customs union commits Turkey to opening its ports and that its demand for concessions was a case of “trying to get something for nothing”.
“Cyprus may call for a strong response to the report on Turkey’s compliance this autumn, even an overall suspension of negotiations (though this would need to be agreed by all 25 member states),” said Hughes.
“If the situation has not changed, it would be a very serious breach by Turkey of obligations it has willingly taken in good faith,” Emiliou told her. “It would be inconceivable for us and for a big number of other member states to open chapters like customs union or transport or free movement of goods, if Turkey has not complied with obligations under the protocol.”
If a lot of chapters were blocked, negotiations could soon stall, the BBC said.
“Most EU diplomats and politicians do not want talks with Turkey to collapse in acrimony. They do want to see Turkey open its ports to Greek Cypriot vessels, but they also want moves to resolve the Cyprus problem,” the report said.
“Some diplomats worry that the Cypriot strategy is to “Europeanise” the Cyprus dispute, moving the dispute away from a UN framework where compromise is inevitable.”
It added that diplomats were searching for possible moves on northern Cyprus that could encourage the Turks to open their ports.
“Some wonder quietly if the threat of formal recognition of the north could push the Greek Cypriot side back to the negotiating table,” Hughes said. “Others hope the Greek Cypriots will not push the negotiations over the brink this autumn, through pure self-interest – since once negotiations stall, their leverage over Turkey is gone.”
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