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01 August 2005
Source: Kathimerini
Author: Kerstin Gehmlich
French hurdle to Turkey’s EU bid Villepin says Turks must recognize Cyprus before talks
Villepin says Turks must recognize Cyprus before talks; Ankara retorts Paris violating its pledges
PARIS - France yesterday raised a potential new hurdle to Turkey
starting European Union membership talks in October, saying Ankara must
recognize Cyprus first.
The executive European Commission and EU President Britain said the 25
EU leaders had never made recognition a prerequisite for opening
negotiations and that the Cyprus question should be dealt with
separately in a UN framework.
A Turkish official said the call by French Prime Minister Dominique de
Villepin was an attempt to violate commitments the EU had made to
Ankara last year, but he voiced confidence that President Jacques
Chirac would keep his word to Turkey.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul responded cautiously to
Villepin’s comments. “We expect France’s support for (Turkey’s) EU
process. Turkey has fulfilled all its responsibilities,” the state
Anatolia news agency quoted Gul as saying in Saudi Arabia, where he was
attending the funeral of King Fahd.
Greece meanwhile upped pressure over the divided island by postponing a
planned visit to Turkey by Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis this month
that would have been the first by a Greek premier to Ankara in more
than 46 years.
Villepin called into question the agreed October 3 date for the start
of Turkey’s accession talks, just days after Ankara met the final
official EU condition by signing an agreement extending its customs
union to new EU members, including Cyprus.
“It doesn’t seem conceivable to me that a negotiation process of
whatever kind can start with a country that does not recognize every
member state of the European Union, in other words, all 25 of them,” he
told Europe 1 radio.
“Entering a negotiation process, whatever it is, first assumes
recognition of each of the members.” Asked whether this meant that the
start of talks could be delayed from Oct. 3, Villepin said, “Of
course,” adding that it was “urgent to wait, to wait for Turkey to show
a real willingness to enter into this negotiation process.”
Any member state can theoretically block the opening of talks, since
all EU nations must approve a negotiating mandate unanimously before
negotiations can begin.
However, Villepin did not go as far as to suggest Paris would veto the
start of talks, saying France would determine its position after talks
among EU foreign ministers in September.
Turkey signed the EU protocol last Friday but issued a declaration
stipulating that the act did not signify recognition of the
Greek-Cypriot government.
A spokesman for the European Commission said the EU should stick to the
commitments it made last December, when all 25 EU leaders agreed to
open talks with Turkey once it had brought key reforms into force and
signed the protocol.
“We must now move forward and open negotiations on October 3,” the
spokesman said. “The conditions set by the 25 member states, in our
preliminary assessment, are fulfilled.” Signing the protocol was a step
toward recognition in the Commission’s view, since it was an
acknowledgement that Turkey would be negotiating with 25 states, he
argued.
A British presidency official said EU leaders had never made
recognition of Cyprus a condition for opening talks, recalling that
Chirac had said last December that signing the protocol did not mean
recognizing Cyprus. Villepin was then foreign minister.
“To set new conditions with two months to go would perhaps be seen as a breach of good faith,” the British official said.
Public opinion in France has swung strongly against Turkish accession
and leading conservative presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy, the
interior minister and leader of the ruling UMP party, insists Turkey
should not be offered full membership.
Hostility to the poor, heavily populated and mostly Muslim state
joining was one factor in the French referendum “no” to the EU
Constitution in May.
Diplomats said the French stance, shared by Austria, could encourage Cyprus to be obdurate on the EU negotiating mandate.
Cypriot government spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides welcomed Villepin’s comments as “particularly positive.”
Asked if Cyprus intended to use the French stance to achieve
recognition before Turkey could begin accession talks, he told
reporters in Nicosia that every effort would be made “to protect the
interests of the Cyprus Republic.”
Cyprus joined the EU in May 2004 despite the failure of a UN-backed
plan to reunite the island, which Turkish Cypriots backed but Greek
Cypriots vetoed.
(Additional reporting by Zerin Elci in Ankara and Jean Christou in Nicosia.)"
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