ANKARA - Turkish Daily News

Turkey concluded its accession talks on the first of the 35 negotiating
chapters with the European Union yesterday, passing a critical
threshold in its membership process, but difficulties that surrounded
the event showed that many more Cyprus-related obstacles lie ahead.

The Greek Cypriots dropped their objection to the opening and
conclusion of the talks on the science and research chapter after the
EU agreed, following several hours of intense negotiations in
Luxembourg at the ministerial level, to mention Ankara's obligation to
open its ports and airports to traffic from Greek Cyprus and to refer
to a declaration issued in September calling on Turkey to recognize and
normalize its ties with the Greek Cypriot administration.

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Greek Cyprus is now set to work to toughen the tone of an EU statement that will be issued after a summit later this week.

The EU position paper for talks on science and research says the talks were closed only provisionally, a sign of the Cyprus row hovering like the sword of Democles over Ankara's head throughout the rest of its accession process.

Greek Cyprus has the right to veto Turkey's talks at the opening or closing of talks on each of the remaining 34 chapters.

"This process has its difficulties and its ups and downs. What is important is to live with them and reach the eventual goal of full membership," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül told reporters before departing for Luxembourg together with State Minister Ali Babacan, Turkey's chief negotiator for EU talks.