POLITICS-EU-LEAD TURKEY

LUXEMBOURG, June 12: European Union foreign ministers faced a showdown with new member Cyprus today over Turkey's bid to join the bloc, with Nicosia threatening to block the talks even before they start in earnest.

Turkey was due to conclude negotiations on the first and easiest of 35 detailed policy areas -- science and research -- but Cyprus insisted that Ankara first be reminded of its obligation to recognise and normalise relations with Nicosia.

Cyprus was threatening to use its right of veto over each stage in the accession process to prevent the Turks completing the first step in its EU marathon smoothly.

''No progress has been made towards our views and therefore I would say it is touch and go,'' Cypriot Foreign Minister George Iacovou said on arrival for the EU session in Luxembourg.

''Turkey has for one year not taken any steps whatsoever to ratify the adaptation of the protocol to the Ankara agreement.

This is a breach of good faith,'' he told reporters. The protocol requires Turkey to extend its customs union to the 10 new EU member states, including Cyprus.

Accusing Turkey of having vetoed Cypriot membership of international organisations five times since it began its EU talks, Iacovou went into talks with Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik. Austria now holds the EU's rotating presidency.

The start of the regular meeting of all 25 EU ministers was delayed while they sought a formula to overcome the problem.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was keen to avoid another humiliating wait while EU foreign ministers wrangle, as occurred last October before Turkey formally began entry talks, ''Neither the foreign minister (Abdullah Gul) nor the chief negotiator (Ali Babacan) will go to Luxembourg as long as there is no positive result from the talks now being held,'' Erdogan told a news conference in Ankara.

Signalling Ankara's growing impatience with what it sees as EU bad faith over the accession process, Erdogan said Turkey's attitude would change if the EU began attaching additional political conditions.

''Our attitude will change accordingly if politics becomes involved in this process,'' said Erdogan, speaking to reporters at Ankara airport before leaving on a visit to Croatia and Macedonia, two other EU aspirant countries.

STAKES RAISED

Turkey, which still has 35,000 troops in Turkish Cypriot northern Cyprus after invading in 1974 in response to a Greek Cypriot coup fomented by the then ruling military junta in Athens, does not recognise the Nicosia government.

It argues that recognition is linked to a UN-sponsored peace plan to reunite the divided island, which Turkish Cypriots accepted but Greek Cypriots rejected in 2004.

The other 24 EU countries had been bracing for a row with Turkey late this year over its failure to open its ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus but were taken aback when Nicosia decided to raise the stakes now.

Turkish assets, sensitive to each twist in the EU accession process, eased slightly today awaiting news from Luxembourg.

The lira, which lost around 15 per cent of its value in a month due to high inflation and domestic political concerns, was a touch weaker against the US dollar compared to last week's close while stocks eased 0.2 per cent.

Ironically it was Austria, now in the EU hot seat trying to keep the negotiations on track, which kept Turkey waiting last October to demand that the EU make Ankara's membership bid conditional on the bloc's capacity to absorb new members.

An Austrian official said he expected EU foreign ministers would anyway hold a regular ''association council'' with Turkey.

But it remained uncertain whether that session would be followed by an ''accession conference'' to conclude the science and research ''chapter'' of the negotiations.

Austria, backed by EU lawyers, has sought to reassure Cyprus that any ''chapter'' that is provisionally closed may be reopened.

Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, voicing the exasperation of many, said: ''Let us not stop at the beginning because this is a very innocent chapter.'' Compounding the slight to Turkey, the EU plans to conclude the same negotiating ''chapter'' on Monday with Croatia, which began talks on the same day as the Turks.

Some diplomats said they believed Cyprus would yield now but wanted to fire a warning shot and lock in EU partners' support for getting tough with Turkey in December unless it opens its ports and airports by then.

REUTERS