Turkish Cypriot vote reflects disappointment with EU

(NICOSIA) - The election victory of hardline nationalists in breakaway northern Cyprus reflects disappointment with failed EU promises to ease the enclave's isolation, Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat said on Monday.
The winner in Sunday's polls, the right-wing National Unity Party (UBP), "took advantage from the Turkish Cypriot people's disappointment with the failure of the European Union and the international community to fulfill their pledges," Talat told the BRTK television channel.
The EU had promised to ease the economic isolation of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), recognised only by Ankara, after Turkish Cypriots overwhelmingly backed a UN plan in April 2004 to end the 34-year division of the eastern Mediterranean island.
The plan was rejected by the Greek Cypriot side, whose government is the island's internationally recognised administration and which became an EU member in May that year.
EU attempts to make gestures to the Turkish Cypriots have since been blocked by the Greek Cypriots.
Talat, an advocate of reunification, expressed confidence the vote outcome would not harm peace talks, revived in September, stressing that UBP leader Dervis Eroglu spoke in support of maintaining negotiations with the Greek Cypriots after his election victory.
"It is a known fact that the Turkish Cypriot people are in favour of a settlement... I think there will be no problem," he said.
Talat, who remains as chief negotiator in the talks, has been negotiating for a bi-zonal federation, but Eroglu's UBP has for years favoured a two-state solution -- a framework vehemently rejected by the Greek Cypriots.
Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkey invaded the northern third in response to an Athens-engineered Greek Cypriot coup aimed at uniting the eastern Mediterranean island with Greece.

SOURCE: http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1240237044.93

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