EU: Turkey took a symbolic step toward EU membership yesterday by provisionally concluding talks with Brussels on the first of 35 policy areas which need to be addressed for it to join the Union.
However, EU foreign ministers also warned Ankara to speedily implement reforms and recognise Cyprus or face a "train crash" in its accession negotiations later this year.
The agreement to close the chapter on science and research - the least contentious of EU policy areas - followed several days of haggling between EU officials and Cyprus.
Cyprus had threatened to prevent EU foreign ministers signing off on the agreement over Turkey's failure to recognise it or open its ports to Cypriot vessels.
But at a meeting yesterday in Luxembourg ministers agreed a compromise text with Cyprus to enable the Turkish foreign minister to sign off on the first chapter.
EU diplomats added a number of qualifications to the text of the agreement on the science and research chapter to put pressure on Turkey. "Failure to implement its obligations in full will affect the overall progress in the negotiations . . . in view of all the above considerations, the EU will, if necessary, return to this chapter," it said.
Enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn is understood to have reassured Cypriot officials during the talks by warning of a "train crash" unless Turkey takes urgent action before the next EU report on its progress, due in autumn.
Turkey, which still has 35,000 troops in northern Cyprus after invading in 1974 in response to a Greek Cypriot coup fomented by the then ruling military junta in Athens, does not recognise the Nicosia government.
It argues that recognition should be linked to a UN-sponsored plan to reunite the island, a plan Turkish Cypriots accepted but Greek Cypriots rejected in 2004.
It is also seeking to link proposals to end the economic isolation of northern Cyprus by the EU with the obligations it has signed up to with the EU, called the Ankara protocol.
Austrian foreign minister Ursula Plassnik and Mr Rehn said the two issues could not be linked and urged Turkey to proceed with its reforms and implement the protocol.
Several EU member states have major reservations about letting Turkey, a predominantly Muslim, poor and populous state, to join the EU.
Croatia also provisionally concluded negotiations with the EU on the first negotiating chapter, science and research.
It could join the EU by 2009 if it continues on its reform path and co-operates with the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.