Cyprus wants more pressure on Turkey

Cypriot Foreign Minister, Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, whose country takes over the EU Council presidency on July 1, demanded in an Austrian interview that the Union put more pressure on Turkey. On the Turkish option of annexing North Cyprus, she said in the newspaper Kurier "Then there will be no place any more for Turkey in the EU. That would be the end of membership negotiations." She pointed out that Turkey was occupying North Cyprus, which was like a Turkish province. Ankara had military, political and economic control. About 40,000 Turkish soldiers were stationed there, and more than 300,000 settlers from Anatolia lived in the north of the divided island. Turkish-Cypriots were a minority today, and were losing their identity. "Turkey is selling the property of Cypriots. It is creating facts." There must be more pressure by the EU on Turkey. Turkey was under obligation to recognize the Republic of Cyprus. "That's an EU decision." If Turkey - as threatened - froze its relations to Cyprus, the negative consequences would be a Turkish problem. If Turkey, on the other hand, fulfilled its commitments, if it recognized Cyprus, opened its ports for Cypriot vessels, and expanded its customs union to Cyprus, then the chapters in Ankara's EU negotiations, blocked in 2006, could be reopened, said Kozakou-Marcoullis. The Republic of Cyprus, an EU member, and since 2008 in the Eurozone, will take over the EU Council presidency in three months' time. Since the 1974 Turkish invasion following a Greek military junta-steered coup, Cyprus has been de facto split. Since then the North has been occupied by Turkish troops. Formally the whole island belongs to the EU, but until the Cyprus question is solved, EU law will only be valid in the Greek speaking part.