Pressure builds on Cyprus unity talks

Turkey recently raised the stakes by threatening it could annex the northern part of the island if Cyprus joins the EU without resolving the division. Greece, already an EU member, has warned it could block EU expansion altogether if Cyprus is not included.

While the EU does not relish the prospect of ushering in a country split by a Berlin-style wall, it has made clear Turkey will not have any veto. Last fall, Romano Prodi, the president of the EU commission, said Cyprus would enter "with or without a solution."

This has placed mounting pressure on Turkey. The entry of a divided Cyprus into the EU would leave a new member with 37 percent of its territory under occupation by an aspiring one.

"That could spell disaster for Turkey's foreign policy and for her own EU aspirations," says a senior European diplomat in Nicosia.

It was reportedly Turkey's cajoling that persuaded Denktas to return to the negotiating table. Turkey's business community had voiced concern about Denktas's stand and even in his own part of Cyprus there was been growing criticism of his "intransigence."

Years of international isolation and embargoes have left ordinary Turkish Cypriots impoverished. Per capita income is about $4,000 compared with $14,000 in the prosperous Greek-Cypriot south.

There has also been an alarming brain drain of young Turkish Cypriots, while settlers from mainland Turkey take their place. "I'd like to see my future in my country, but I can find no job, so I must leave," one Turkish Cypriot said during a recent debate televised in Turkey.

Polls show that the vast majority of Turkish Cypriots would like to enter the EU as soon as possible provided their security is guaranteed in a re-united Cyprus.

Crossing the "green line" in Nicosia, the world's last divided capital, is like entering a time warp. Glass high rises dominate the skyline in the bustling, cosmopolitan Greek-Cypriot half of the capital. Less than a mile away, in the Turkish-Cypriot half, the buildings are tattier and the shops shabby.

The outline of a UN-sponsored settlement would reunite the two sides under a loose federal system. Each community would enjoy a large degree of autonomy with a central government representing Cyprus internationally.

The Turkish Cypriots, who comprised 18 percent of the population in 1974 but were left in control of 37 percent of the island, would have to return "an appreciable amount of land" to enable a majority of the 167,000 displaced Greek Cypriots to return.

The issue of sovereignty, will be the trickiest, diplomats and officials say. While the Greek Cypriots seek a federal system of two regions operating under a single sovereignty, as called for in UN resolutions, Denktas wants a confederation of two independent sovereign states.

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