EU urged to call off talks with Turkey

By Daniel Dombey in Brussels

Published: November 14 2006 02:00 | Last updated: November 14 2006 02:00

The battle over Turkey's EU bid began in earnest on Monday, with Cyprus and Austria arguing that the European Union should halt negotiations.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Yiorgos Lillikas, Cypriot foreign minister, said it was not enough to suspend talks on a limited number of topics - one option being studied in Brussels.

Ursula Plassnik, Austrian foreign minister, called for "time out" from the negotiations, at an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.

The issue has come to a head because of Turkey's refusal to meet an EU demand to open its ports to vessels from Cyprus, which is an EU member but does not have diplomatic ties with Ankara.

Last week, the European Commission attempted to defuse the dispute by deferring its own recommendation on an EU response for a month.

But Mr Lillikas said heno longer held out hope the deadlock could be broken by compromise between Cyprus and Turkey. The Finnish EU presidency has spearheaded efforts to find a deal, but Mr Lillikas said Turkey had shown it was not interested.

Mr Lillikas said it would not be enough to suspend talks on a limited number of the outstanding 34 negotiating topics, since negotiations were already in effect suspended on several topics - where Cyprus has blocked them - and in many other areas it would take years before Turkey was in a position to negotiate.

Instead, Cyprus believes the EU should consider halting the entire talks while stopping short of a formal decision to put the process on hold.

Yesterday, Ali Babacan, Turkey's chief EU negotiator, said such a delay would have serious consequences for the EU, for Turkey, and the surrounding region.

But countries such as the UK and France believe the EU can still agree to halt talks on a certain number of chapters rather than delay the whole process, arguing that if the whole process were halted it might never be revived.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006