By Jean Christou
A DEAL with Turkey to stem the migration flow to Europe that a Brussels summit hopes to thrash out over the next two days hinges on Cyprus, and Ankara’s support of the island’s peace talks, European Council President Donald Tusk warned on Wednesday, as intensive backroom negotiations were ongoing.
A day after Tusk visited Nicosia and Ankara, he told EU leaders in a letter: “Work is progressing, but there is still a lot to do”. The migration deal needed to be “an opportunity (for Turkey) to support the settlement talks in Cyprus. Only if this is possible can we move forward here,” said Tusk, as President Nicos Anastasiades was meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
Tusk said later at a news conference that his trip to Nicosia and Ankara on Tuesday had shown that there was a lot left to be done to reach a deal that all parties involved would be amenable to. “Most importantly, we cannot and will not compromise respect for EU law and international law,” he said. “Without that, Europe would no longer be Europe”.
Turkey wants to have five of its negotiating chapters opened as part of the agreement.
Anastasiades reiterated on Wednesday that he planned to stick to his positions.
Responding to a comment by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that Ankara would insist on chapters being opened as part of the migration deal, Anastasiades said Nicosia had its own positions it would insist on.
“As long as they [Turkey] do not meet their obligations, deriving from the Ankara Protocol, and more generally from the negotiating framework, there is no issue of opening negotiating chapters,” Anastasiades said. Under the protocol, Turkey is obliged to open its ports and airports to Cyprus’ air and sea traffic, but it does not recognise the Republic and has failed to comply.
According to Reuters, Nicosia could also try to block visa liberalisation for Turks since the EU conditions include the principle of equal treatment of all member states. Cyprus does not have a veto on the visa issue, but it could find allies among reluctant countries such as France, Spain and Austria, the agency said.
Turkey too, looked set to stick to its guns on Wednesday. Turkish EU minister Volkan Bozkir said the EU must not allow the “caprice” of Cyprus to spoil the migrant deal.
“When a step has been taken towards a solution, when agreement has been reached on a package, the whole structure should not be allowed to be ruined just because of the … caprice of one EU member country,” Bozkir, said in an interview with NTV.
According to Reuters reports from Brussels, EU officials offered last-minute tweaks to the draft pact with Turkey in an effort to make it legally watertight, but a standoff with Cyprus could yet scupper any deal.
“We are certainly not giving Turkey a free ride,” European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said, adding that Ankara would have to enact a raft of measures within six weeks if Turks were to get visa-free travel to the 26-nation Schengen area in June as part of the agreement.
He also said that Turkish requests to open new chapters would need the agreement of all member states, though he did not refer to Cyprus. He acknowledged concerns about human rights in Turkey, but said that the EU had an interest in expanding the accession process in order to address those issues.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is desperate to clinch a deal for domestic reasons, also said on Wednesday the bloc would not compromise its democratic principles just to sartisfy Ankara, although many fear that is exactly what she wants to do.
She said there was still work to do on visa liberalisation for Turks and tackling Cypriot concerns before the EU could speed up talks on membership for Ankara.
“What is at stake tomorrow and the day after tomorrow is whether we can get a deal that, for the first time, gives us a chance to get a sustainable, pan-European solution to the refugee issue,” she said.
“If we do open new chapters as part of deeper cooperation, it remains clear that membership talks between the EU and Turkey are conducted in an open-ended way. And that means that Turkish membership of the EU is really not on the agenda,” added Merkel.
She said there would be “no reneging on our own principles”, but added that one obstacle to opening new chapters was “the unresolved question” of Cyprus. “We still have work to do before tomorrow’s summit,” she said.
Earlier in the day, Government Spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said Turkey, during last week’s summit, had attempted to circumvent EU institutions “and unfortunately with the help of some Member States” attempted to come to an agreement bilaterally with Germany and the Netherlands, bypassing all other member states and even Tusk himself. He was referring to the leaders of Germany and the Netherlands who spent six hours meeting with Davutoglu the night before the summit where Ankara’s demands were spelled out.
Tusk was only informed later by the Dutch presidency.
“There was a request through Turkey to open five chapters in the accession process,” Christodoulides told CyBC.
He said Anastasiades had sought the meeting with Juncker ahead of the Council session on Thursday to discuss the Turkish demands and the state of affairs with regard to the Cyprus negotiations.
“Our position is well known, is clear and understood by our partners in the EU,” the spokesman said.
Asked to comment on various reports relating to the opening of Turkish ports and airports in return for Cyprus allowing the opening of one or more chapters, Christodoulides said he was aware of the reports but repeated that the only way for Turkey to move forward with its accession was to fulfill its obligations to Cyprus under the Ankara Protocol, which involves normalising relations with the Republic.
The EU leaders are due to meet Davutoglu on Friday morning to finalise the deal, if one is reached on Thursday.
