BY FERAI TINC
HURRIYET- When `anchoring Turkey in Europe' was mentioned during the European Union leaders' summit two years ago, we discussed and criticized this concept a great deal. Now they're `anchoring' Turkey's EU membership process on Cyprus with their latest decisions. Unfortunately, it seems that this situation will effectively limit Turkey's ability to solve the problem. The Cyprus hurdle is feeding an atmosphere which would cause people to ignore many barriers to Turkey.
Now I'd like to direct your attention to the Cyprus traps. Some people say that Turkey's membership talks won't be opened in eight chapters but the isolation on Turkish Cypriots will be ended, and a comfortable atmosphere will be established in which Turkey can apply the additional protocol and we will overcome this obstruction. I hope this happens, but the EU didn't make a decision to remove the barriers keeping Turkish Cypriots cut off from the world. This is deliberate, because Europe made a promise beforehand. A decision to remove the barriers will start to be shaped next week. As the term president as of Jan. 1, Germany said that it would work towards this end. We even saw reports that the Greek Cypriots were convinced. We must consider this with a grain of salt. During the foreign ministers' meeting, the EU said that a political consensus had been reached about the framework of the economic development of Northern Cyprus. A statement by the Greek Cypriot Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) shows that there's no reason to interpret this positively. It said that the issue of Turkish Cypriot trade with the EU is covered not by the final declaration, but by a separate declaration by the EU term presidency. It added that in line with this, the declaration has a positive element in that it mentions the regions which are not controlled by the `Republic of Cyprus' in a consequential way.
The term `the north of Cyprus' stressed by AKEL, which made Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) President Mehmet Ali Talat angry, later became expressed as `Cyprus' occupied territories.' It has this meaning legally as well. What will happen if the Greek Cypriots say that Turks can sell their own goods from our harbors to whoever they want? For this purpose, it's sufficient to use the formulation that Turks can carry out trade from legal harbors. None of the EU members would reject it. Would the Turkish Cypriots accept this? For Turkey, is this going to mean removing the isolation of the TRNC? No. Then are you going to say that we want the isolation of the TRNC ended? In other words, are you going to say that you mean to recognize the TRNC's sovereignty? Are you ready to do this?