Brussels, 20/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - Cyprus and ESDP: "are part of the same package" as te launch of Turkey's accession negotiations with the EU, declared the leader of the AKP Recep Erdogan, in Brussels on Wednesday. Erdogan repeated to the press that Ankara expected a date in Copenhagen for beginning negotiations, hammering home: "We have been waiting for 40 years, whereas those that put in their candidacy 10 years ago are to enter". As for the Annan Plan for Cyprus, "it has come at a bad time", as the Turkish Cypriot leader Denktash is ill and because the new government will only be sworn in in the first week of December.
The new strong man in Ankara has these past few days met Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, Spain's Jose Maria Aznar, Greece's Costas Simitis and Germany's Gerhard Schroeder. These are European leaders who have said they were most in favour of the Copenhagen Summit setting a date for the beginning of negotiations. Most of the others are very much against that. Recep Erdogan will be in Copenhagen on 26 November for talks with Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller. The United States is putting pressure on the Europeans for Turkey to become a member of the EU. The General Affairs Council of 9 and 10 December is to prepare the decision that the Fifteen will take in Copenhagen (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.6).
When proposing his draft plan for peace in Cyprus on 11 November, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan had asked the two communities to tell them of their initial reactions within a week. Mr. Annan said on Tuesday that he had received a letter from Greek Cypriot leader Clerides, who said he was prepared to begin talks on the basis of that document, but that he was "very concerned" at not having received a reply from the Turkish Cypriot side. Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash is currently in hospital in New York. "We urgently need to find a way to begin negotiations, as an additional delay could see the opportunity at hand disappear", declared Kofi Annan. This opportunity is the prospect of the European Council of Copenhagen, at which the Fifteen should back membership of Cyprus (reunified or not) of the EU and decide on relations with Turkey. Having said he was in favour of a rapid resolution of this 30-yea old conflict, Recep Erdogan cast a shadow last week by calling for the simultaneous accession of Cyprus and Turkey, which amounts to speaking out against Cyprus' membership, even reunified, of the European Union in 2004. The European Commission acted firmly be declaring that there was no question of linking the fate of these two countries.