Turkey’s EU accession process must not slow–Erdogan

Turkey's bid to enter the European Union must not be allowed to slow down, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday, highlighting Ankara's increasing frustration with the speed of accession talks to the club.
"The process must not slow," Erdogan told a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, adding the EU would have to keep its promises and calling on Germany for help.
"We are decisively continuing with this process of accession negotiations, especially where they are about international and regional relations," Erdogan added.
Merkel said talks were on track but the result remained unclear. "(Turkey's) accession talks are taking place and the process continues. The process has an open result," she said.
The EU Commission is finalising its annual report on how Turkey is progressing on EU requirements. An impasse over Cyprus will be seen as the main outstanding problem.
Merkel said both sides on the divided Mediterranean island would have to move to break the impasse. "Where a problem must be solved, both sides have to move," she said.
Merkel said she would travel to Cyprus in January to offer Germany's help.
Turkey, which straddles Asia and Europe, started formal membership negotiations with the bloc in 2005.
Accession talks have advanced slowly due to Turkey's refusal to open its ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus, while the EU maintains a blockade of the Turkish enclave in north Cyprus.
Turkish officials suspect some EU countries of using the Cyprus issue to stall the membership bid. Some EU member states are reluctant to admit a relatively poor Muslim country of 72 mln people that borders Iraq, Iran and Syria.
Turkey and Germany will also cooperate closely on fighting terrorism and the two interior ministries have founded a commission for this purpose, Merkel said.
Ankara, the EU and the United States brand Turkey's rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) a terrorist organisation. The PKK launched an armed campaign against the Turkish state in 1984 for a Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey.