Turk businessmen lean on Denktash
NICOSIA (AFP) – Turkey’s most influential business group urged Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash yesterday to step up efforts to resolve Cyprus’s longstanding division in order to facilitate Turkey’s bid for European Union membership. «We, the business community, hope a permanent settlement will be reached as soon as possible,» the deputy chairman of the Association of Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen (TUSIAD), Mustafa Koc, told Denktash during a meeting in Nicosia. Denktash and Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides began peace talks in January, aiming for a settlement by June. But they have made little progress and the UN Security Council has recently urged them to step up their efforts, an appeal that Denktash rejected as an «unacceptable pressure.» Reunification of the island has become a more urgent priority due to the prospect of Cyprus, a leading EU membership candidate, joining the bloc in 2004, with or without a settlement. A failure to find a solution is likely to hit Turkey’s already struggling EU membership bid.
