The unresolved conflict in Cyprus stands as perhaps the greatest obstacle towards Turkey's joining the European Union and one of Ankara's major foreign policy headaches. Although the island's reconciliation efforts have mostly come to a standstill, there appears to be new hope that a resolution might be in sight. Dogu Ergil, a Turkish academic and columnist for Today's Zaman, recently wrote about the reasons behind this new momentum. From his column:
Following the third electoral victory of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Cabinet was reshaped with several basic goals. The first is to increase the innovative and productive capacity of Turkey to have it promoted to the list of developed countries; the other is to enhance relations with the European Union with the aim of gaining possible membership in due course.
Achieving both goals is connected with the solution of the so-called “Cyprus problem, which” has become a burden on Turkey in diplomatic, political and economic terms. Two pieces of news on the Cyprus issue surfaced in the papers recently -- one came from the UN (reported by the Greek Fileleftheros), which said they expected a resolution by December; otherwise they would consider redeploying the UN military forces elsewhere because both sides would have proved they have no intention of reconciling.
The other news is the positive attitude that came out of the tripartite talks which took place in Geneva on July 7. However, we are still far from reaching an agreement on issues of land and population, let alone engaging in talks on sharing sovereignty. The Greek Cypriot side insists on having a sovereign unitary state, whereas the Turkish side would prefer a Swiss-like resolution where sovereignty of their own is recognized. So there is still a long way to go. However, the government program that was announced by the Turkish prime minister last week demonstrates a genuine desire to get the Cyprus issue out of the way.
The full column can be found here.
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