Denktas: Greek Cypriots won’t veto talks with Turkey

"Greek Cypriots are not powerful enough to veto Turkey’s EU membership; therefore, nobody should fear that they might exercise their veto. They don’t have the courage," Turkish Cypriot Foreign Minister Serdar Denktas said.

Greek Cypriots joined the EU on May 1, and Greek Cypriot leader Tassos Papadopoulos will sit together with 24 EU leaders at a Dec. 17 summit that will decide whether or not accession talks with Turkey should start.

Media reports said Greek Cypriots would decide whether to use its veto right at the last moment.

"A Greek Cypriot veto is not possible," Denktas told the Anatolia news agency, advising Ankara to watch out for other countries that could potentially veto Turkey.

The EU Commission said in an Oct. 6 report that Turkey has sufficiently fulfilled the Copenhagen criteria and recommended that accession talks with Ankara begin.

Turkish leaders have said Turkey has fulfilled its responsibilities and is now awaiting a clear decision for the beginning of the talks.

‘Turkey does not interfere in polls’
Denktas’s coalition government with Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Talat stepped down two weeks ago after months-long efforts to forge a majority government failed. Leader of the biggest Turkish Cypriot political party, Dervis Eroglu, asked by President Rauf Denktas to form a new government, also failed to do so at the end of a round of talks with other parties, paving the way for early elections.

Denktas told Anatolia that Turkey did not interfere in elections in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC). He was referring to statements by Talat that Turkey should not interfere in any elections in the KKTC because this was an internal affair.

"Turkey, of course, would not interfere in our election. It would try to work in harmony with whatever government comes to power here," he said.

Talat, in an interview with Anatolia on Saturday, said the new Turkish Cypriot government should work in cooperation with Turkey and coordinate its policies with Ankara but warned that Ankara should play no role in the elections.

Talat’s Republican Turks’ Party (CTP) emerged as the leading party in December 2003 elections and took the lead in supporting a U.N. plan for reunification of the island in an April 24, 2004 referendum.

Early elections in the KKTC are now expected to take place in late January. Both Talat and Denktas denied Eroglu’s charges that they had agreed on the date of elections prior to resignation in October.