Blow to hope of Turkey-Cyprus deal

Turkey's troubled bid to join the European Union endured another blow on Thursday, after an attempt to negotiate a deal over Cyprus was called off.

Finland, holder of the EU presidency, announced it was cancelling plans for a ministerial-level meeting on Sunday intended to address the biggest current difficulty in the negotiations - Turkey's failure to comply with an EU demand to open its ports to vessels from Cyprus. Ankara does not have diplomatic relations with Cyprus, but Finland had hoped to reach a deal at the meeting, which would have involved Turkey, Cyprus and the self-styled Turkish republic of Northern Cyprus.

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The European Commission is now due to report on November 8 that Turkey has failed to meet the demand - a finding that could lead to a "train crash" in which the talks are suspended or cast into limbo.

"This is not very encouraging," Erkki Tuomioja, Finnish foreign minister, told the Financial Times. "It would have been helpful, particularly for Turkey, if we could have achieved a solution or at least shown that negotiations were under way. It would have taken the edge off some of the quite justified criticism."

However, Mr Tuomioja said Finland would continue its efforts, if necessary engaging in shuttle diplomacy.

People following the talks said the three main parties had all been reluctant about the proposed deal, which would have involved the EU taking charge of Famagusta port in Northern Cyprus, the United Nations assuming responsibility for a neighbouring town, and Turkey beginning to open ports to the internationally recognised Greek Cypriot government. The failure to reach an agreement puts pressure on the Commission to recommend how the EU should respond to Ankara's defiance, a scenario Brussels has been desperate to avoid.

EU lawyers say that unless Turkey opens its ports it will be impossible to start negotiations on topics directly related to the dispute, such as the customs union, tax and transport.

Some EU member states want to go much further. Cyprus insists that all Turkey's membership negotiations should be frozen if Ankara continues to refuse to open its ports.

The atmosphere surrounding the negotiations is al-ready tense. A copy of the EU's draft strategy paper, seen by the FT, says that "the pace of reforms has slowed down in Turkey" and calls for "determined efforts to broaden the reform momentum in Turkey". Because of the sensitivity of the Cyprus dispute, the draft leaves the section for conclusions and recommendations blank.

Some observers cautioned that a deal on Cyprus was always most likely in the run-up to an EU summit in December which will focus on enlargement and Turkey's EU aspirations. "It would have been tremendous if we had been able to reach a deal at this stage but it's not surprising that we haven't," said one. "My feeling is that this will run into December."

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006