One year after the European Union (EU) began membership talks with Turkey in October 2005, the Cyprus issue still remains a major block on Turkey's path to EU membership.

The country's integration with Europe, which began back in 1963,may suffer lasting damage as Ankara refused to open its airports and harbors to traffic from Cyprus and insisted that it would do so unless the EU takes steps to end the Turkish Cypriot community's economic isolation.

In order to avoid a "head on collision" in Ankara's entry talks later this year over the Cyprus problem, Finland, which holds the rotating EU presidency, offered a set of proposals that reportedly envision the opening of the Turkish Cypriot port of Famagusta for joint use of the two sides of the long divided island under an interim United Nations (UN) or EU administration, in exchange for handing over control of Varosha (Maras) to the UN for Greek Cypriot settlement. Then it is expected that Turkey will open its ports to Greek Cypriots.

However, the Turkish Cypriot community said the Finnish package, which "is giving everything to the Greek Cypriots", must include the opening of the Ercan airport of northern Cyprus to international traffic. It also says the status of Varosha is anelement of the overall solution to the Cyprus deadlock and it should not be a part of the Finnish proposal.

Turkey argues that the EU can no longer be fair or objective in finding a balanced solution to the Cyprus problem, saying that the bloc has become a party to the problem after the Greek Cypriots joined in May 2004.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey militarily intervened and occupied the north of Cyprus following a coup by a group of Greek officers. The internationally-recognized Republic of Cyprus joined the EU in 2004 in the name of the whole island because Greek Cypriot voters rejected a UN-backed unification plan. Turkish-dominated northern Cyprus insisted that the Cyprus problem must be resolved under the roof of the UN, and accused the EU of importing the problem by allowing the Greek Cypriots to join the bloc in May 2004.

Early this week, Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen announced that the EU is posing a Dec. 6 deadline for Turkey to open its ports to Greek Cypriots as part of the country's additional protocol, which extends its customs union to the ten new EU member states including the Republic of Cyprus, which is not recognized by Turkey.

The Finnish rotating presidency of the EU gave Turkey the deadline so the EU foreign ministers will weigh their response accordingly on the ports row when they meet on Dec. 11 in light of the EU Commission's recommendations.

Reacting to the Dec. 6 deadline set by the bloc on the ports dispute, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul recently dismissed the deadline on Cyprus or what he called "blackmail". Citing how the Turkish Cypriots voted in favor of an international peace and reunification plan on the island back in 2004, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government would not take any step if they do not agree with the offered proposals.

The prime minister has once said that he would rather see the suspension of the EU membership talks than bow to what he called "unreasonable" demands over Cyprus.

The EU Commission in its report on Turkey and enlargement strategy paper released on Nov. 8 said the leaders would make a proposal during the summit in mid-December on whether to continue talks with Turkey if the country fails to open its ports. Analysts argued that the EU's decision aims at keeping the door open to a possible success of negotiations on the Finnish proposals up until the key meeting.

The analysts said that if Turkey fails to implement its obligation to opening ports to the Greek Cypriots, it seems that the commission will suspend some important chapters of the accession talks to avert an all-out suspension.

According to optimistic expectations, detailed talks on three to eight, or a maximum of 11, of the 35 chapters might be suspended, while pessimists say the number of suspended chapter could be as high as 15 to 20.

Joost Lagendijk, co-president of the Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Commission, noted that if a solution is not found within a few weeks, it is a high possibility to freeze the Cyprus issue, and Turkey's EU negotiation process can not be pursued as it was planned.

Despite the Turkish-EU relations are heading into trouble at the moment over the Cyprus problem, the Turkish leaders still hope diplomacy can resolve the dispute, saying that they were determined to continue talks until the last minute in a bid to find a solution.

"The Finnish are making great efforts to resolve the issue and we are supporting them," said Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, who will go to Helsinki on Sunday, for talks on Finland's plan to address both sides concerns, adding, "if a solution could be found, we would gladly say yes."

However, for Turkey, it has become apparent that as long as the isolation of northern Cyprus is not lifted, opening ports to Cyprus will be out of the question. In other words, even if the government would like to do so, it would have to face opposing public opinion.
 
As Turkey enters the election year of 2007 and nationalism is on the rise, it is clear that a unilateral concession over the Cyprus issue would be harmful for any Turkish government because many Turks consider the Finnish package is based on an expectation of the Turkish side to compromise for the sake of keeping Turkey's EU process on track, even without getting anything from the EU or the Greek Cypriots in return.

Besides the Cyprus problem, the EU has also been asking Turkey, a secular Islamic country seeking to join the bloc for more than 40 years, to carry out more reforms, enhance freedom of expression and curb the role of the military.

Currently, more and more Turks have started reconsidering whether it might be in the best interests of Turkey to join the EU.

In a recent opinion poll, only one in three Turks said they definitely want their country to join the EU. The figure of the similar poll was 50 percent two years ago, Turkish media reported.

Some EU officials said that it would take 10 years for Turkey to join the 25-nation bloc if Ankara meets all EU's criteria.

However, what is clear is that as long as the Cyprus problem remains unsolved, Turkey will not have the chance to get into the bloc even after a decade.

(Xinhua News Agency December 14, 2006)