Brussels, 10/12/2004 (Agence Europe) - "I hope that, in one week, the EU Member States will manage to come to a decision on opening negotiations without delay without deviating from a clear, full and unconditional perspective for accession", said Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visiting Brussels on Thursday and Friday to urge for the last time before the European Council for negotiations to be opened. "Our idea is that negotiations should begin in the first half of 2005", he said at the time of his meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, on Thursday evening in Brussels. Opening a conference attended by Mr Erdogan, Rifat Hisarciklioglu, President of the Chamber of Commerce of Turkey, TOBB, declared that "Cyprus must not be an obstacle or a precondition in negotiations".