"Recognising Cyprus: will Turkey budge?
By Louse Dunne and Theo Tamis, 17 December 2004
On Friday, Turkey and the EU's Dutch presidency finally broke the impasse in talks on launching EU membership negotiations with Ankara. The main sticking point was, once again, the thorny issue of Cyprus, the divided Mediterranean island, of which the Greek part joined the EU this year, and whose government Turkey has so far refused to recognise.
Under the agreement, Turkey is to present a written intention of good will, amounting to a de facto recognition of Cyprus, before entry negotiations start on 3 October.
From the perspective of the Cypriot government, this is only fair, since it has recently been making concessions, too. Now it's determined Turkey should do the same, says James Kerr Lindsay of the Cypriot thinktank Civilitas in this interview with Radio Netherlands."
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