Cyprus vetoes Turkey’s talks to gain EU entry

· Foreign ministers fail to agree common approach
· Muslim country’s reforms and economy in difficulty

David Gow Brussels
Saturday June 10, 2006
The Guardian

Talks between Turkey and the EU over the largely Muslim country’s
entry to the world’s biggest trading bloc headed for collapse at the
first hurdle last night after Cyprus torpedoed a deal to kick-start
the stalled negotiations. After signing up for a late-night
compromise on Thursday, designed to allow formal accession talks with
Turkey’s foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, to go ahead on Monday, the
republic of Cyprus unpicked the agreement on the least contentious
issue of science and research – the first of 35 negotiating
“chapters”.

“It would be utterly humiliating for Mr Gul to head for Luxembourg and
be told by the 25 EU foreign ministers that they had failed to get
their act together and have the door slammed in his face,” a senior
European diplomat said as crisis talks among EU ambassadors got under
way before ending in deadlock. Mr Gul, who is due to be warned that
Turkey’s reform programme is unacceptably frozen, with renewed threats
to his country’s stability, support for human rights and religious
freedom and judicial independence, has already suggested he could stay
away or the talks be suspended. EU foreign ministers will try to
unlock the door on Monday.

Turkey began entry talks on October 3 last year with a view to
becoming the EU’s first Muslim member by the middle of the next
decade.

But the talks have been repeatedly held up by the refusal of the
Islamist AKP (justice and development) government of Recep Tayyip
Erdogan to recognise Cyprus – or at least honour an agreement to give
the Greek part of the island access to a customs union with the EU’s
10 new members, including to Turkish ports and airports.

Cyprus, in political manoeuvring that prompted some EU governments,
including the UK, to withdraw concessions they had made to enable the
Turkish talks to take place, demanded a more explicit reference to
Ankara’s adherence to the customs union deal. “They have new ministers
and are acting ultra-politically,” another diplomat said.

Ali Babacan, Turkey’s chief negotiator, warned this week that the
country should expect delays in its attempt to join the EU, and talks
on the second “chapter”, education and culture, could also be
postponed. He provoked outcry by excising a reference to Turkey’s
secular constitution in documents submitted to Brussels.

“The Turkish economy is resilient to all kinds of developments at home
and abroad but everyone should be ready for occasional slippages and
problems with the EU,” the country’s economy minister said.

But the Turkish economy, a “rising star” under Mr Erdogan since the
collapse of 2001, has been in free fall for several weeks.

This week the independent central bank raised interest rates 175
points to 15% to combat inflation, which leapt to almost 10% in May
because of surging oil prices and domestic demand. The bank’s target
this year was 5%. Similarly, the Turkish lira has lost more than 15%
of its value, and the Istanbul stock market, which had risen 500% in
four years, fell 11.5% this week alone.

But the Erdogan government has also come under sustained onslaught,
both at home and in the EU, for its alleged failure to act over a
suspected ultra-nationalist gang said to be behind the assassination
of a judge and the shooting of three others by a lawyer in the council
of state, the country’s highest administrative court. The court had
upheld the ban on women wearing the Islamic headscarf in public
offices, including schools and universities.

With daily fatal clashes between Kurdish rebels and the armed forces
in the deprived south-east of the country, the chief of staff has also
come under attack for urging his fellow citizens to demonstrate
against the governmentover the erosion of the secular state, prompting
EU fears over civilian control of the military.

Turkish business leaders have called on the prime minister to drop
religious issues and reboot the reform programme. Several have voiced
concerns that the lack of progress in the accession talks could spell
the end of Turkey’s European ambitions; these fears have been
heightened by repeated warnings from Olli Rehn, the EU’s enlargement
commissioner, that the talks are heading for a “train crash” over
Cyprus and stalled reforms. Other business leaders are now saying that
Turkey should position itself instead as a regional power in an area
stretching from central Europe via the Caucasus to the Gulf.