EU urges Turkey to hasten reforms

Turkey's chief negotiator told the European Union's enlargement chief yesterday his country was open to any temporary or partial solution to avert a looming "train crash" in its EU membership bid over Cyprus.

But Economy Minister Ali Babacan said Ankara's one "red line" was that it would not open its ports and airports unilaterally to traffic from Cyprus, whose Greek Cypriot government it does not recognise.

European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn urged Turkey to press ahead with political reforms and open its ports to ships from Cyprus under its EU customs union before Brussels issues its annual report on Turkey's progress on October 24.

"Commissioner Rehn reiterated his well-known messages to encourage his Turkish counterpart to move on with the political reforms as soon as possible and to meet Turkey's obligations under the Ankara agreement," Commission spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy said. Failure to do so could set back the accession talks, the EU has warned, sparking a political crisis between Turkey and Europe at a time when polls show a growing public estrangement.

"If there are any alternative ways to find an interim solution, a partial solution or a postponement of the serious problem so that we can handle the situation step-by-step, we are still ready to discuss any possible solution," Mr Babacan said.

Experts were studying scenarios and no political decision had been taken, he said, but Turkey did not rule out referring the issue to the European Court of Justice, which can rule on disputes in their customs union if both sides request it.

"We have only one red line: Turkey is not going to open the ports and airports unilaterally," he said.

The EU says Turkey is required under the agreement extending its customs union to 10 new member states to open its ports to shipping from Cyprus, which joined the bloc in 2004.

Ankara says it will only do so if the EU ends the economic isolation of Turkish Cypriot northern Cyprus by allowing direct trade with the area. The EU rejects any linkage.

Rehn said in an interview earlier this year he feared a "train crash" over the Cyprus issue.

Mr Babacan said the Turks felt unfairly treated because Ankara and the Turkish Cypriots had accepted a UN peace plan for the divided island in 2004 while the Greek Cypriots had voted against it but been admitted to the EU anyway.

Asked whether he too expected a "train crash", he said he hoped the EU's rational decision-making would prevail. The wider world would not understand it if Turkey's accession process was slowed down by what he called the small issue of Cyprus.

A Commission source said Rehn raised Brussels' concerns about freedom of expression in Turkey and the prosecution of writers and journalists for expressing their views peacefully.

He has urged Ankara to amend again a key article of the penal code which makes it an offence to "insult Turkishness", often used by nationalist prosecutors or lawyers to launch cases against intellectuals over issues such as Kurdish rights and the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 under Ottoman Turkey.