Gul invitestill stands,Greece says

Athens waiting for a reply

The Greek Foreign Ministry was still waiting last night for a reply from Ankara after it renewed an invitation to Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul to visit Athens this month in an effort to strengthen bilateral relations.

Athens had withdrawn the longstanding invitation on Wednesday after it emerged that Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis had to attend an extraordinary United Nations Security Council meeting in New York.

The UN meeting was postponed until December 12 and Athens immediately renewed the invitation for Gul to visit on December 7-8.

The date of the visit is significant as EU foreign ministers are due to meet on December 11. The Foreign Ministry is also keen to nip in the bud claims that Greece was looking for an excuse to withdraw the invitation after the European Commission froze part of Turkey's EU accession process.

«Today's development without a doubt emphatically contradicts all the presumptions that have been published about the postponement of Gul's visit,» said Foreign Ministry spokesman Giorgos Koumoutsakos yesterday.

«Greece has a standing commitment to this visit taking place.»

Koumoutsakos said Gul's visit would help bilateral relations without affecting Greece's insistence that Turkey should meet its EU commitments.

The spokesman also denied claims that Cyprus was unhappy about Athens's efforts to meet with Gul.

Nicosia said yesterday that it may block Ankara's membership talks unless Turkey agrees to open its ports and airport to Cypriot ships and airplanes, as it signed up to do in July last year. President Tassos Papadopoulos said that he was not satisfied with the action taken by the European Commission in its efforts to make Turkey meet its accession obligations.

Nicosia said it would make its final decision when EU leaders meet in Brussels on December 14-15. Bakoyannis is due to meet with Papadopoulos and her Cypriot counterpart Giorgos Lillikas in Nicosia today to discuss the latest EU developments.