Nobody’s closing the door to Turkey… but should they?

 

No sooner were the Finnish efforts to reach agreement over the thorny issue of Cypriot access to Turkish ports declared dead and buried on Monday, than diplomatic efforts were deployed to see if anything could be saved from the process.

EU foreign ministers will decide next month if they can continue the process with Turkey, as consequences will follow because “business as usual cannot continue”, according to the Finnish foreign minister.

Knowing that nobody wants to close the door to Turkey, Ankara knws that it sill be left ajar, which is why it insists that “failure to reach agreement was not a pre-condition” for continuing membership negotiations, despite the EU’s repeated warnings that the opening of ports to Cyprus is a key condition for Turkey’s membership to the bloc.

“Nobody’s closing the door to Turkey, but Turkey also has to recognize and implement its responsibilities,” said the Finnish official, who added that the EU was not setting any new conditions for Turkey’s membership bid for fear of a permanent rift in EU-Turkey relations.

Officials said that conditions set out by Cyprus and Turkey had been too different to reach agreement, while government officials in Nicosia said the Turkish side had demonstrated no readiness to compromise.

The Finnish presidency’s efforts seemed among the most genuine of EU efforts in recent years but it failed to win support from either side. It is not too clear if the upcoming German presidency will show as much enthusiasm or allow the matter to sail through the next six months and limit efforts to simply discussing the merits of reopening or negotiating harmonisation chapters.

With Turkey itself bracing for a new round of elections next year and Cyprus preparing to go to the polls the year after that, the next few months should be utilised to explore Turkey’s commitment to proceed with efforts to resume talks, otherwise Cyprus should brace itself for yet another deadlock that could result in gloomy consequences for either side.