* Won't accept divided Cyprus in EU chair *
EU candidate Turkey would not accept Cyprus in the rotating European Union presidency, which it is due to assume in July 2012, without a deal to end the island's division, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.
Speaking before travelling to the Turkish occupied north of the island, Erdogan said the EU should weigh the impact of letting the internationally recognised Greek Cypriot state take the chair for the first time.
"We will not accept the EU presidency of South Cyprus, whom we do not recognise. The European Union should consider the consequences," he told a news conference in Ankara.
Erdogan's visit to northern Cyprus was his first trip abroad in his third term in office after his ruling AK Party won a comfortable victory in a parliamentary election last year.
The trip marks the anniversary on Wednesday of Turkey's 1974 invasion of the island.
On his arrival in Cyprus, Erdogan said no progress towards a solution of the division was possible unless the principle of two founding states was accepted.
"There is no such state as Cyprus. There is southern Cyprus and there is the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," he told a crowd of around 2,000 people waving Turkish and Turkish Cypriot flags at the airport.
During his visit, Erdogan was expected to deliver strong messages to both the Greek Cypriot government and the EU, while also reassuring Turkish Cypriots of Ankara's support for them as efforts to reunite the island get underway once again.
Erdogan angered many Turkish Cypriots earlier this year with harsh words as he forced their government to adopt unpopular austerity measures.
Air traffic controllers threatened to disrupt his visit by holding a three-hour strike to coincide with his arrival, and a teachers' union was due to hold a protest on Wednesday along with some leftist organisations.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, accompanying Erdogan, warned last week that relations with the EU presidency would be frozen when the Greek Cypriot government takes over the six-month presidency unless the dispute had been resolved.
Milliyet newspaper quoted Erdogan as underlining that stand, saying: "There will be no relations between Turkey and the EU for six months."
He was also quoted as opposing any deal that would oblige Turkish Cypriots to hand over the town of Morphou, or the Karpas peninsula as part of any property swap.
On a visit to Nicosia earlier this month, Davutoglu voiced hope that Greek and Turkish Cypriots would negotiate terms for reunification to be put to a referendum early next year.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon concluded a meeting with leaders of the Greek and Turkish Cypriots in Geneva this month by saying he expected to overcome their differences by October.
Both sides have agreed in principle to reunite Cyprus as a two-zone federation, but remain at odds over redrawing existing boundaries and settling property claims by thousands uprooted in the conflict.
Turkey began formal talks on joining the European Union in 2005 but is frustrated by the slow progress made so far. Aside from Cyprus, core EU members France and Germany both have strong doubts about letting Muslim Turkey join the 27-member bloc.
Out of 35 chapters, policy areas of EU law, Turkey has completed one, 12 are under discussion and 18 have been frozen by Cyprus and France.
