Cyprus deal postponed

A deadline for reaching a deal on Cyprus and so avoid derailing Turkey’s EU membership bid has been pushed back until the end of the year, as chances for an accord are faltering.

According to diplomats, a "general understanding" that a deal would have to be reached before the European Commission’s 8 November report on Turkey’s progress towards joining the EU is now giving way to a target date of 14-15 December, when EU leaders meet in Brussels.

Talks are currently deadlocked over the scope of the deal, which would see Turkey cede control of the town of Varosha in return for the EU beginning direct trade with Northern Cyprus.

But both sides are struggling to reach an agreement over demands from the Cypriot government that refugees who fled Varosha during the Turkish invasion in 1974 be allowed to return to their homes.

Turkey has not ruled out giving up control of the town, which is currently uninhabited, to the UN, but sees the issue of refugee return as part of broader talks on reunification of the island.

Turkey has said it will not open its ports to Cypriot flag-carriers - a precondition for continuing EU membership talks - unless direct trade with the North begins.

Some diplomats are now warning that if no movement is made, further progress will be even more difficult after the Commission’s report is published.

The Commission has already come under fire for its decision to shift the publication of the text from 24 October to 8 November in order to give more time for talks.

"It is difficult to continue discussions after the [Commission’s] regular report," said one EU diplomat, "we don’t see any merit in that."

Any delay is also likely to pose problems for the Commission itself, which will have to decide whether or not to recommend that membership talks with Turkey should continue.

The EU has warned that Turkey’s talks on EU membership will be partially or completely suspended if the country does not open its ports and airports to Cypriot vessels and planes by the end of the year.

But efforts to broker a deal have been further complicated by the controversy caused by the French parliament’s approval last week of a law making it a crime to deny that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenians.

Although French President Jacques Chirac said that he would not approve the law, it has further soured relations with the EU.

The law is widely seen in Turkey as a punch below the belt by opponents of the country’s EU membership that will strengthen the position of anti-Western hardliners and spur anti-European sentiment among Turks. This, in turn, would make it harder for the government to push ahead with reforms.

Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, current chairman in office of the European Council, told European Voice the French genocide law was "not helpful at all".

"This is not a legislative question, to decide what was right or wrong in history," Vanhanen said.

A deadline for reaching a deal on Cyprus and so avoid derailing Turkey’s EU membership bid has been pushed back until the end of the year, as chances for an accord are faltering.