EU ‘will honour commitment to Cyprus’

By Charlie Charalambous

THE EUROPEAN Union said yesterday it would start membership talks with Cyprus next year as planned regardless of Turkish objections.

“The negotiations will open with Cyprus whatever the climate in the region, ” said Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jacques Poos. “The European Union will stick to this commitment.”

Poos was speaking at a news conference in Luxembourg after an hour of talks with Cyprus Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides and EU foreign ministers.

Luxembourg currently holds the EU presidency and Poos heads the EU’s council of foreign ministers.

Membership negotiations with Cyprus, along with five other Eastern European countries, are scheduled for March 1998.

Cassoulides took the opportunity to repeat the government’s invitation to Turkish Cypriots to participate in the EU process.

“This invitation still stands, despite the fact that the first reaction of Mr Denktash was negative,” Cassoulides told the news conference.

Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash scuppered the last round of direct talks because of Cyprus’s EU bid and has issued threats ever since.

The EU has snubbed Turkey’s requests for membership, but Poos said the next meeting of EU foreign ministers would consider inviting Turkey to a conference next February for aspiring EU members.

Cassoulides said the government would not try and block this move.

“We have no objections whatsoever to sitting at the same conference table as Turkey.”

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.