THE EUROPEAN Commission wants the new Turkish Cypriot president to enter settlement talks with Greek Cypriots on the basis of a pre-agreed formula, something the hardline nationalist leader vowed to resist before his election on Sunday.
Dervis Eroglu’s ascent to the presidency has led to fears that he will derail the island’s reunification and undermine further Turkey’s difficult bid to join the EU. In defiance of international pressure, he wants to restart UN-brokered peace talks from scratch.
This has implications for Turkey’s stalled application for EU membership, which was complicated by the failure to settle the dispute before Greek Cypriots joined the union in 2004.
Amid numerous other challenges to its accession, Turkey cannot join the EU until it recognises Cyprus, and Cyprus would veto Turkish membership if the island was not reunified.
Although a spokeswoman for European enlargement commissioner Stefan Füle said a comprehensive settlement “would help” Turkey’s bid for membership, she said there was “no direct link between the elections” and the application process.
However, senior Turkish diplomat Izzet Yenel told Austrian daily Der Standard that Turkey would not have any chance of joining the EU if it did not push on with the peace process.
Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already urged Mr Eroglu to proceed with the UN talks, calling for a settlement by the end of the year.
At meetings with Mr Füle last month, Mr Erdogan is understood to have given reassurances that whoever won the election would continue the negotiations with good will.
Mr Erdogan urged voters to back the candidate ready to promote reunification, indicating a preference for Mr Eroglu’s rival and predecessor, Mehmet Ali Talat.
The Turkish prime minister said on Monday that he did not believe a “different process” would begin after the election.
Despite Mr Eroglu’s declared stance, some observers believe it would be unthinkable for him to defy Ankara. Turkey is the only country to recognise the Turkish Cypriot state and it has 35,000 troops stationed there.
While Mr Eroglu told reporters after his election that he expected extensive talks to resume next month, Cyprus has argued that his election could cause “very serious problems” in the negotiations.
The commission believes “very significant positive progress” was made in UN-backed talks between Mr Talat and Demetris Christofias, leader of the Greek Cypriots, and does not want to see the process return to “square one”.
Those talks were aimed at uniting the island, divided since Turkey’s occupation of the north in 1974, in a new federation under single sovereignty.
Mr Eroglu, by contrast, wants independence for the Turkish Cypriots in a loose confederation of separate sovereignty.
Cyprus has called on the international community to exert its influence on Mr Eroglu to continue the talks on the agreed basis.
