Cyprus Conundrum Stalls Ankara Accession

The divided island of Cyprus, an old political problem, is proving to be a big obstacle for Turkey's hopes of joining the EU.

The European commission today recommended a partial suspension of accession talks with Turkey over its refusal to open its ports to ships from Cyprus.

The final decision will be left to an EU summit next month, but Brussels has recommended that the EU put on hold talks on eight policy areas or "chapters" out of a total of 35.

This represents a compromise between Turkey's supporters, led by Britain, and its critics, including Germany, who want to offer something called "privileged partnership" - a euphemism for second-class citizenship - and not the full membership that has awaited all other candidates, from Estonia to Bulgaria.

But Cyprus is the immediate problem, an issue that goes back to Turkey's invasion in 1974. Ankara sent in troops after a Greek Cypriot coup, backed by Greece's then ruling military junta.

The island has been split ever since with a breakaway state in the north, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The enclave is recognised only by Turkey and has subject to an international embargo for years.

A diplomatic Rubik's cube, Cyprus has defied the best problem-solving efforts of many statesmen. In the most recent attempt, Kofi Annan, the outgoing UN secretary general, came tantalisingly close to a settlement.

But two years of UN-brokered talks between the leaders of the majority Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities went up in smoke when the Greek Cypriots rejected the UN settlement plan in an April 2004 referendum.

That diplomatic failure is now coming back to haunt Turkey's accession talks. Following the referendum, Cyprus became an EU member in May 2004. As such, the EU last year demanded that Turkey permit Cypriot ships to use its ports during the course of 2006.

However, Turkey has said it will only open its ports to shipping from Cyprus if the EU fulfils a pledge to end the economic isolation of Turkish Cypriot northern Cyprus, which the internationally recognised Greek Cypriot government in Nicosia has blocked.

Nicosia continues to oppose EU efforts to establish direct trade and economic links to north Cyprus, to encourage the Turkish Cypriot community to continue to support reunification.

Unsurprisingly, Ankara says the Cyprus problem should not be linked to Turkey's EU accession bid. The partial suspension of negotiations threatens to drag the accession process, which began in October last year, out even more. So far, Turkey has provisionally concluded talks on just one chapter - science and research.

Even without Cyprus, actual membership is not anticipated for another 10 to 15 years. It seems absurd that Cyprus can derail such an important enterprise for both Turkey and the EU.

But Turkey's chief EU negotiator, Ali Barbacan, who was in London yesterday, acknowledged that public opinion was becoming an important issue, a reference to "enlargement fatigue" in France and Germany, now that the EU has grown to 25 members, and to unease in some countries that Turkey is a mainly Muslim nation, albeit a secular state.

There is impatience in Turkey too at what Turks see as the constant hoop-jumping to which they are being subjected.

Mr Barbacan told an audience at the international affairs thinktank, Chatham House, that the inclusion of Turkey within the EU would increase the body's relevance, give it a more representative voice and make it truly multicultural.

"The perception of the EU in the Muslim world will change forever," Mr Barbacan said, adding that the whole Muslim world was watching Turkey's bid closely, to see whether it would be accepted by Europe.

Analysts say a breakdown - although we are not there yet - in accession talks would have an immediate impact on Turkish politics.

"The goal of EU membership has helped to ensure that two camps which do not trust each other - the secular "Kemalists" in the army, judiciary and bureaucracy, and the Islamists in the ruling AKP government - work together on a reform agenda," said Katinka Barysch and Charles Grant in a recent paper for the Centre for European Reform, a London thinktank.

"But the removal of that goal and the consequent recriminations could destabilise the political system."