PRESIDENT Tassos Papadopoulos reiterated yesterday there could be connection between the breakaway regime’s economic ties to the EU and efforts to persuade Turkey to open its ports to Cypriot traffic.
He was making the statements at Larnaca airport, shortly after arriving from New York where he had attended the UN General Assembly.
Papadopoulos said the “so-called isolation” of the Turkish Cypriots was unrelated to Turkey’s compliance with the customs union protocol.
“We want a solution to the Cyprus problem yesterday,” Papadopoulos said, “but one which truly reunites the country.”
Ankara has refused to meet an obligation under its EU customs union to open its ports to shipping from Cyprus unless the 25-nation bloc makes good on a pledge to end the economic isolation of northern Cyprus.
The matter is a major diplomatic stumbling block for Ankara’s EU accession bid. The bloc is soon to publish a progress report on Turkey, and there are growing fears the dispute with Cyprus might lead to a showdown.
On Thursday, European Union president Finland said it had begun a new diplomatic drive to end the economic isolation of Turkish Cypriot northern Cyprus in hopes of averting a crisis between Turkey and the EU this year.
Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said he was holding intensive talks with Turkey, Cyprus, Greece and other interested parties to try to unblock an EU deal to open direct trade with the Turkish Cypriots and convince Turkey to open its ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus.
“We have just a few weeks to see if we can get it done or not,” he said in an interview.
“My sense is that none of the parties is saying ‘no,’ but no one is saying ‘yes’ yet either.”
Tuomioja declined to give details of the initiative but EU diplomats said it also involved steps designed to satisfy the Greek Cypriots, such as a reopening of the blocked port of Famagusta under international supervision.
The Finnish minister stressed he was not trying to resolve the 32-year-old division of Cyprus, an issue that lay with the United Nations. Greek Cypriots overwhelmingly rejected a UN peace plan in 2004 accepted by Turkey and Turkish Cypriots.
He said he was seeking to enlist US help to find a short-term deal to settle the immediate problems.
However, Papadopoulos appeared to reject the notion of direct trade with northern Cyprus as a front for political separatism when he addressed the United Nations on Tuesday.
“The political agenda of projecting a separate political entity in Cyprus has been in recent years pursued under the pretext of a campaign to lift the so-called ‘isolation’ of the Turkish Cypriot Community,” he told delegates.
