“Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat has said he is opposed to Turkey unilaterally opening its ports and airports to Greek Cyprus because Greek Cypriots would think they could gain concessions without agreeing to a peace settlement in Cyprus,” Turkish Zaman daily reports. “This is very dangerous. Opening of ports and airports should be kept to either a solution or to lifting the isolation of Turkish Cypriots simultaneously,” Talat said.

"The EU has repeatedly asked Turkey to open its ports and airports to traffic from Greek Cyprus. EU foreign ministers were meeting yesterday in Brussels to discuss, among other things, Turkey’s refusal to comply with the EU demand. Talat, who had talks with British Premier Gordon Brown during his stay in London, said, “I believe that now we have a good chance because (Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris) Christofias wants a solution. Turkish troops will withdraw from Turkish Cyprus when a lasting solution was found in the island. If the Annan Plan had been accepted, troop withdrawal would have taken place,” the source reads.

Cyprus was occupied by Turkish troops’ intervention in 1974. The Annan Plan was a United Nation proposal to settle the Cyprus dispute of the divided island nation of Cyprus as the United Cyprus Republic. It incorporated the following elements:

A collective Presidential Council, made up of six voting members, allocated according to population (4 Greek Cypriots and 2 Turkish Cypriots).A President and Vice President, chosen by the Presidential Council from among its members, one from each community, to alternate in their functions every 20 months during the council's five-year term of office. A bicameral legislature: senate with 48 members, divided 24:24 between the two communities and Chamber of Deputies with 48 members, divided in proportion to the two communities' populations (with no fewer than 12 for the smaller community). A Supreme Court composed of equal numbers of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot judges, plus three foreign judges; to be appointed by the Presidential Council.

L.A.