{"id":32765,"date":"2011-04-26T09:44:16","date_gmt":"2011-04-26T06:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=32765"},"modified":"2012-09-18T18:04:17","modified_gmt":"2012-09-18T15:04:17","slug":"eu-must-keep-its-promise-on-cyprus-ex-eu-official-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2011\/04\/26\/eu-must-keep-its-promise-on-cyprus-ex-eu-official-says\/","title":{"rendered":"EU must keep its promise on Cyprus, ex-EU official says"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The state of European Union-Turkey negotiations is unsatisfactory, and the EU must act to find a solution to Cyprus and other issues causing barriers to negotiations, according to a former European official.<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cThe state of negotiations is very disappointing,\u201d G\u00fcnter Verteugen, former EU enlargement commissioner, told a group of journalists on Monday, after a meeting with the state minister and Turkey\u2019s chief EU negotiator Egemen Ba\u011f\u0131\u015f, in Istanbul\u2019s Ortak\u00f6y neighborhood.<\/p>\n<p>Verheugen said it was crucial to keep the process alive and remove any obstacles. \u201cAs far as the Cyprus issue, which is one of the main obstacles, the EU has the obligation to implement what it promised in 2004 to the people living on the island,\u201d he said, referring to the EU\u2019s guarantee that Turkish Cypriots would not be victims in the case Greek Cypriots said no to the 2004 referendum on a United Nations Organization\u2019s plan to reunite the island.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is not only a promise, this is decided and written on the status book,\u201d Verheugen said, the Cyprus issue had to be solved immediately for negotiations to speed up.<\/p>\n<p>The former commissioner also praised Turkey\u2019s economic progress in the last decade. \u201cTurkey is the fastest growing economy in Europe today, and I think this is important, especially regarding the argument that \u2018Turkey would be an economic burden [for the union] if it joined the EU,\u2019 so much more is made of this in the EU political debate.\u201d Verheugen said he believed the key to Turkey\u2019s economic success had been its political stability.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding leaving Turkey outside of the European Commission\u2019s draft EU budget for 2014-2020, Verheugen said he believed the EU was not trying to give any negative political message to Turkey. \u201cThe budget [for Turkey if it becomes an EU member within this period] can be accommodated, if negotiations are concluded. It is not the most important point [regarding negotiations].\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The state of European Union-Turkey negotiations is unsatisfactory, and the EU must act to find a solution to Cyprus and other issues causing barriers to negotiations, according to a former European official. \u201cThe state of negotiations is very disappointing,\u201d G\u00fcnter Verteugen, former EU enlargement commissioner, told a group of journalists on Monday, after a meeting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":33028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[211],"tags":[742],"class_list":["post-32765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cyprus-trnc","tag-diplomacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}