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Roundup: Cyprus likes to have Turkey's EU accession negotiation chapters tied to progress on Cyprus solution

Xinhua, April 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

Cyprus would like to have the blocked chapters of Turkey's EU accession negotiations linked to progress in efforts to reunify the eastern Mediterranean island, Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides said on Friday.

He was quoted by state television as saying during press remarks in Paris that this would be the best arrangement for all.

"Because if there is a solution (to the Cyprus problem) the chapters frozen by Cyprus will automatically be resolved," Kasoulides said after talks with French Foreign Minister Jean-Mark Ayrault.

Cyprus blocked five out of 35 chapter of Turkey's negotiations in 2009, over Ankara's refusal to permit access to Turkish ports by Cyprus registered ships and Cypriot aircraft to overfly Turkey on flights to Russia.

Turkey withdrew recognition of Cyprus after it occupied its northern part in 1974, invoking a coup against the island's government organized by the military rulers of Greece at the time.

Turkey had agreed to extend a customs union to all 10 countries which joined the European Union in 2004 but then failed to include Cyprus in the arrangement.

At an EU summit in Brussels discussing the deal with Turkey to check the refugee flow into Greece last month, Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu tried to connect it to the opening of the five chapters blocked by Cyprus, causing President Nicos Anastasiades to give a warning that he would veto the entire refugee deal.

Turkey was finally content with the opening of just one chapter which had not been blocked by Cyprus.

Ayrault said that reaching a solution on Cyprus would be a historic moment as a country negotiating peacefully in Europe would be capable to resolve a problem that has been around for much too long.

Past efforts to resolve the issue foundered because of disagreements over who will have rights over properties from which Greek Cypriots were ejected, also over the influence Turkey wants to have over a reunified Cyprus, and other points. Endit