Cavusoglu calls for EU backing of Turkish stance during talks

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and chief negotiator on European Union accession Omer Celik accused Cyprus of unilaterally blocking the opening of new chapters and of adopting an unproductive stance at the Conference on Cyprus in Switzerland, the Cyprus News Agency reported on Tuesday.

Celik and Cavusoglu, in Brussels for high-level talks with EU Foreign Affairs commissioner Federica Mogherini and enlargement chief Johannes Hahn, blamed Cyprus and called on reporters to ask the Italian commissioner “who was productive and who was unproductive at Crans-Montana”.

He said the Greek Cypriot side had been “unproductive” and that it can no longer hold Turkey’s accession talks “hostage”.

Cavusoglu criticised EU member states for “showing solidarity” to each other and for “double standards” against others.

Mogherini did not comment on the Crans-Montana conference but told the Turkish ministers that “the European Union is a family and member states do well to show solidarity”.

“It is not only the Cyprus issue that makes it difficult to imagine an opening of further chapters,” she said.

Mogherini told Cavusoglu and Celik that Turkey itself had asked the EU to focus the dialogue on strategy and not just accession talks.

“As you can see we are focusing on the strategy part,” she said.

“But of course each individual member state should have positive relations with Turkey, and vice versa.”