Cyprus zal niet voetstoots akkoord gaan met EU-compromis (en)

Cypriot president Tassos Papadopoulos has warned that his country will not "pay the price" for Finnish EU presidency efforts to avert a suspension of Turkey's EU membership talks.

"The Finnish EU presidency is exchanging ideas with all the interested parties so as to help Turkey fulfil its obligations towards Europe," he said on Thursday (19 October), according to AFP.

"This is a bid to help Turkey and certainly the Cyprus Republic cannot be called on to pay the price for this help," he stated.

The Cypriot leader was referring to a Finnish plan aimed at averting what EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn i has called a "train crash" in Turkey's ongoing EU accession negotiations - meaning that the talks which started last year could be fully or partially suspended.

The EU is asking Turkey to open its ports and airports to traffic from EU member state Cyprus before the end of the year, as part of a customs agreement signed by Ankara and Brussels.

The Finnish trade-off solution foresees that in return for Turkey fulfilling the EU's demands on Cypriot planes and vessels, the EU will make moves towards ending the economic isolation of the Turkish Cypriot community in the North of Cyprus.

But Mr Papadopoulos' remarks indicate that Helsinki will have a hard time gaining support for the plan, with Nicosia in turn demanding concessions from Ankara and the Turkish Cypriots.

The Cypriot government is currently blocking direct EU trade with the North - occupied by Turkish forces since 1974 - arguing that this would undermine its claim of sovereignty over the whole island.

Diplomats say Helsinki's compromise plan foresees that in order to facilitate trade with the EU, the Northern Cypriot port of Famagusta would be placed under UN supervision.

But Nicosia is asking more than just that, Mr Papadopoulos indicated.

"For Turkey to be facilitated, we place an inviolable condition for the fenced-off area of Famagusta (Varosha) to be returned to its legal residents," he said referring to a ghost town which has been deserted ever since the Greek Cypriots left in 1974.

He added that Turkey "in no way" agreed to his demand on Varosha, with diplomats seeing the Varosha issue as key to the chances of success for the Finnish plan.

Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat earlier this month rejected handing back Varosha to Greek Cypriots, saying this could only be part of a "give and take" as part of a later "comprehensive" peace deal for the island.

For his part, Mr Talat demanded that any interim deal before the end of this year would also include the opening of the Northern Cypriot airport at Ergan - currently only open to flights to and from Turkey.

The series of demands by both communities on the island - who each fear they will lose out on a deal designed to save relations between Ankara and Brussels - highlight the difficulty for Helsinki of solving the issue.

The issue is set to come to a peak on 8 November, when the European Commission will publish a progress report on Turkey's accession preparations.