"Kivanc Galip OVER: A new era with the EU
Thursday, January 13, 2005
The European Union summit statement released after Dec. 17 shows that it is still too early to celebrate the new warmth in Turkish-EU relations; however, there is no reason to get upset or angry either. Indeed, the only hurdle we had to deal with was a new era in relations and the passing of a critical threshold � and one cannot consider this a historic turning point.
Cyprus was one of the important issues of the summit. To summarize, I saw the EU affair as: Ankara Treaty forms the basis of relations with Turkey; Turkey does not let Greek Cyprus sign the treaty; Turkey does not officially recognize Greek Cyprus; several problems exist between Turkey and Greek Cyprus and under such conditions Turkey needs to recognize Greek Cyprus.
Turkey overcame this problem. Surprisingly, Greek Cypriot leader Tassos Papadopoulos was the one who helped Turkey the most in overcoming it. His obstructionist attitude removed all the hurdles one by one. "
More:Turkish Daily News
