EU must keep its promises to Turkey: Ankara

The responsibility for re-energizing Turkey's accession process will belong to the European Union even in the event that the ongoing Cyprus talks fail to produce a breakthrough, Turkey's EU minister has said, asking the bloc to keep its promises toward Ankara.

"In the event that the Cyprus problem cannot be resolved, the removal of the blockages imposed on chapters by the Greek Cyprus without an EU Council decision or in the absence of a legal basis belongs to the EU," EU Minister Volkan Bozk?r told a group of reporters traveling to Eski?ehir with him on Jan 7.

"A letter signed by Donald Tusk [president of the EU Council] and Jean-Claude Juncker [president of the EU Commission] and sent to our prime minister stands as a commitment to the opening of these five chapters. They don't say that these chapters can [only] be opened if the Cyprus problem is resolved," he said.

The letter Bozk?r referred to was sent to the Turkish government as an annex to a Nov. 29, 2015, joint statement between Turkey and the EU and cited five chapters the EU Commission promised to prepare for opening in the first quarter of 2016. 

The five chapters are under a Greek Cypriot veto, and there are concerns that the failure of Cypriot reunification talks would also have a negative impact on the Ankara-Brussels relationship. 

"Our position in keeping the Cyprus issue unrelated to our EU accession process remains. We will not allow any kind of involvement of the Cyprus problem in our accession process. There is this commitment of the EU. But in the event the Cyprus problem is resolved, then all these chapters will absolutely be opened automatically," he said.  

Turkish and Greek Cypriots have been negotiating for a sustainable solution to the...