TURKISH CRASH LOOMS FOR EUROPE!

Turkish crash looms for Europe
By Kirsty Hughes Writer on European affairs.

To the consternation of many - but the ill-concealed glee of some - Turkey's negotiations to join the EU are threatening to grind to a halt this autumn amid a row over the divided island of Cyprus.

The problems of Cyprus and Turkey are intertwined for the EUEuropean politicians and diplomats have been alert to this much-heralded "train crash" since early this year but as an EU end-of-year deadline looms, no-one seems sure whether or how the crash can be avoided. After 40 years in the EU's waiting room, Turkey's membership talks finally began last October. But instead of this encouraging a positive new dynamic between the Union and its large neighbour, the mood has been souring ever since. In Istanbul, Erdal Kabetepe, director of Turkab, an EU-Turkey association, says: "Our job is to encourage people to support the EU but now we are very much discouraged... if the EU continues like this, it may lose Turkey and that won't help anyone given all the events in the region." The divided island of Cyprus, which joined the EU in 2004, is the immediate cause of this looming dispute.

Q&A: Cyprus peace process

Turkey, which has had troops in northern Cyprus since 1974 (when it invaded the island in response to a short-lived Greek coup) does not recognise the Republic of Cyprus. It did agree last year to extend its customs union agreement to all 25 member states including Cyprus, and so open its ports and airports to Greek Cypriot vessels. But Turkey has neither ratified nor implemented this deal.

Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has raised the stakes by saying that Turkey will only open its ports when the EU ends the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots in northern Cyprus - as it promised in 2004 - and open northern Cypriot ports too to direct trade. The EU rejects this linkage. In June, Olli Rehn - European commissioner for enlargement - told the European Parliament: "If we want to avoid a major problem in the autumn, Turkey needs to stick to its word".

Back in Turkey, public support for the EU has taken a tumble in the last 18 months, a development which some officials blame on "anti-Turkey statements from some European politicians". Certainly, when leaders such as Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel or French Interior Minister Nikolas Sarkozy question Turkey's future in the EU and propose an alternative "privileged partnership", this reverberates widely in the Turkish media. Spectators from abroad think the prosecutions are mad but there is method in their madness Writer and academic Murat BelgeAnd as Turkey heads towards presidential and parliamentary elections next year, opposition parties are taking a hard-line towards any compromise with the EU over Cyprus. EU diplomats worry that, apart from the Cyprus problem, Turkey's political reform process is grinding to a halt.

High-profile court cases pushed by a group of nationalist lawyers against many writers, including novelist Orhan Pamuk, have rung alarm bells. Writer and academic Murat Belge - two cases against him recently dismissed - worries, over coffee in an Istanbul café, about the growing nationalism. "It is a very sensitive period where everything matters," he says. "Spectators from abroad think [the prosecutions] are mad but there is method in their madness as they want to demonstrate to the outside world that Turkey is not really a good country to be part of the EU."

Erdogan is expected to recall parliament early - in mid-September - to push through a new package of reforms but unless it abolishes article 301 of the penal code, under which these anti-freedom of speech cases were put, Brussels will not be impressed. While some politicians in Austria and France may welcome a train crash in Turkey's negotiations this autumn - and could well push for negotiations to be suspended - others, such as Finland (currently running the EU's presidency), Spain, and the UK, want to keep the process on track as far as possible.

More talks on talks are due this month. Some diplomats admit that the EU has not delivered on its promise - made at the end of April 2004 (after the Turkish Cypriots voted Yes and the Greek Cypriots voted No to a UN plan to reunite the island) to end the isolation of northern Cyprus.

In mid-2004, the European Commission put forward two regulations to provide financial assistance to the north and to allow direct trade (out of northern Cypriot ports and not just across the "Green Line" that divides the island). Financial assistance of 259m euros was finally agreed early this year, but its distribution was - at least temporarily - blocked by the Greek Cypriots in early July. They also continue to block direct trade saying this is tantamount to recognition.

Quiet attempts by some EU diplomats to fix a small direct trade package for northern Cyprus and so avoid the EU-Turkey train crash do not for now look very hopeful. And while the UN recently pushed the leaders of both sides on the island to meet, discussions on how to move to technical-level talks failed to reach agreement in early August and so "talks on talks" will re-start in September.

So while stalemate remains between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and Turkey insists it will not move unilaterally, the EU's leaders will have to decide this autumn what penalty to impose on Turkey for not keeping to its legal commitment to open its ports to Greek Cypriot shipping. Hard-line voices already talk off-the-record about total suspension of talks, while softer voices hope for a minor penalty such as suspending talks on just a few negotiating "chapters" (those connected to the customs union - perhaps three or four chapters).

The European Commission will produce its annual report on Turkey in late October or early November, but the wide spectrum of opinion across EU member states on how to respond - and the intense negative public opinion towards Turkish membership in countries like Austria and France - mean that a final decision on how to penalise Turkey will probably be pushed to the Union's December summit. Bad tempers and late nights can be predicted. And in a worst-case scenario, worrying some officials, the 25 leaders may not agree at all. In that case, individual member states such as the Greek Cypriots or France, could decide simply to block all future negotiations chapter by chapter, leaving the EU in disarray and its relations with Turkey in tatters.

BBC NEWS REPORT.