EU ministers leave Cyprus issue aside in talks with Turkey

EU ministers yesterday averted a major row with Turkey by agreeing a formula for Turkey's accession partnership agreement with the EU that does not make a settlement of regional conflicts a precondition of membership.

The agreed text merely sets down as a medium-term objective the need for Turkey to resolve any outstanding border disputes and other related issues - a clear reference to Cyprus and disputes with Greece over some Aegean islands.

The EU Accession Partnership Agreement is a political and economic plan for Turkey to follow if it is to join the EU and the agreement yesterday clears the way politically for the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Bulent Ececvit, to attend Thursday's European Conference between the EU and the accession countries ahead of the Nice summit.

Ministers also agreed to back the Commission outline plan for the acceleration of the enlargement negotiations process, reiterating the EU's commitment to be ready by the end of 2002 to take in the first of the new members.

The Commissioner for Enlargement, Mr Gunter Verheugen, was delighted. "This is the best day since I came to office because we now have in place a strategy supported by all member-states and all the candidate countries," he told a news conference.

But, he added, "today's strategy does not change in any way the conditions which must be met by the candidate countries." Meeting for the last time before the summit, the ministers also approved a text on setting up permanent security and military structures under the EU's new common foreign and security policy.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, speaking to journalists, defended Ireland's reticence over treaty changes allowing for reinforced co-operation in the field of military policy. They would allow groups of member-states to co-operate on projects when others wanted to stand aside.

Mr Cowen said that Ireland's negotiating stance on reinforced co-operation had been, from the start, based on attempting to get clarification from its proponents on their precise intentions, and had succeeded in securing a number of important safeguards. It was still not clear, he said, what they intended in the military sphere, and Ireland preferred to see the EU advancing on issues as a group "to maintain coherence and avoid fragmentation".