BELGIUM: Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat takes tough line on EU efforts to break deadlock over Cyprus

Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat said he was ready to hold constructive talks to avoid a train crash between the European Union and Turkey over Cyprus but refused to make concessions to gain a lifting of the economic isolation promised by the European Union. Speaking in Brussels after meeting Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja representing the EU presidency on Friday (November 3), he would not gain anything by handing over the ghost town of Varosha in return for direct trade with the EU from the port of Famagusta. He was responding to a compromise deal Tuomioja is said to have put forward in an effort to break the deadlock over Cyprus that could derail Turkey's European Union membership bid. Talat said the EU process had to be separated from the UN efforts to find a solution for Cyprus, divided since 1974 when Turkey occupied the north in a short lived coup. "If a part of comprehensive solution is included in efforts to lift the isolation of Turkish Cypriots and to pave the way to the European Union's bid this will not be fair. And at the end, if this goes on like this it will lead to a piecemeal solution or lets say an effort for a piecemeal solution. But piecemeal solution is not possible because piecemeal solution contradicts comprehensive solution. Comprehensive solution is the only way to find a solution to the Cyprus problem comprehensively. Piecemeal solution might yield to a deadlock and might wipe out the interest of the Greek Cypriot side for comprehensive solution," Talat said. The EU says Turkey, which began entry talks last year, must meet a treaty obligation to open its ports to ships from Cyprus this year or face consequences for its accession negotiations. Turkey says it will only do so if the EU ends the economic isolation of northern Cyprus, as it pledged to do when the Turkish Cypriots voted in 2004 for a U.N. peace plan which the Greek Cypriots rejected. Talat says concessions would only serve to perpetuate the problem of Cyprus indefinitely. "Partial solution to the Cyprus problem is totally a different matter and it is not possible to partially solve the Cyprus problem because there are many elements of the Cyprus problem inter related with each other and if you somehow solve one portion of the Cyprus problem you may undermine the efforts for solution to the other parts," Talat said. Efforts to break a deadlock over Cyprus that could derail Turkey's European Union membership bid suffered a blow on Thursday (November 2) when the EU, under the presidency of Finland, was forced to drop an attempt to get all concerned parties around a table. Tuomioja said it had not been possible to broker a meeting with Turkey and the Greek and Turkish Cypriots to discuss a trade and ports deal before the executive European Commission publishes its next progress report on Ankara's EU candidacy next Wednesday. But he said on Friday that he would press ahead with initiatives to break the deadlock despite his failure to get all parties around the table this weekend. Talat said islanders were resentful of the EU because they expected to see an end to their economic and trade isolation. But he held to a tough line at the news conference. "I have to give some territories and some land some properties to the Greek Cypriot side in return of my rights in the state. I am not going to get any right in the state by handing over Varosha. So this is not a deal. A good deal at least," Talat said. Tuomioja said he would continue talking to the parties individually and then there were three options: to table a full proposal and say "Yes or no"; to try again to bring all sides together; or to conclude there was no possibility of a deal. Cyprus is represented in the EU only by the Greek Cypriot government in Nicosia.

ITN Source | November 4, 2006

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