Cyprus ‘will not block Turkey’s EU moves’

THE CYPRIOT government will not block Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, President Tassos Papadopoulos said in an interview published in Spain yesterday.

Papadopoulos, who fiercely campaigned in the April referendum against the Annan plan, also said it would take Cyprus at least three years to adopt the euro currency after joining the EU on May 1 this year.

The EU is to decide at a December summit whether Turkey has made enough progress on human rights and political freedoms to begin long-delayed entry talks, which could last many years.

Any one of the EU’s 25 members could veto the process.

“Cyprus is not going to introduce any obstacles to beginning the process of Turkey’s entry in the European Union,” Papadopoulos told El Pais newspaper.

A divided Cyprus entered the EU after some 76 per cent of Greek Cypriots reject the UN reunification plan, while Turkish Cypriots – long criticised for obstructing a deal – approved the UN blueprint with a 65 per cent majority.

Asked about the timing of its entry into the 12-nation euro zone, Papadopoulos said high deficits and a weak tourism sector following the September 11 attacks in the United States would delay this.

“We need at least three years … It will be difficult to introduce the euro before 2008,” he said. The government has in the past said it hoped to adopt the euro in 2007.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.