BRUSSELS, Dec 17 (AFP) - Turkey and the EU`s Dutch presidency struck an agreement Friday to end an impasse blocking accord on launching EU membership talks with Ankara, diplomats said.
"Turkey and the Dutch presidency have agreed on a text of the conclusions" to a European Union summit dominated by the standoff over Turkey`s hopes of joining the EU, said a Turkish diplomat.
EU leaders agreed late Thursday to start talks with Ankara next October, but set a series of strict conditions, the most thorny of which was an EU call for Turkey to recognize the government of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
A French diplomatic source said the agreement involved Turkey making a written declaration committing itself to signing an additional protocol to the 1963 Ankara Agreement, amounting to a de facto recognition of Cyprus, before entry negotiations start on October 3.
"The European Council welcome(s) Turkey`s decision to sign the protocol regarding the adaptation of the Ankara Agreement," the diplomat said, reading part of a reworked draft text of the summit`s conclusions.
Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974, when Turkish troops occupied the northern third of the island in response to a coup engineered by the then-ruling military junta in Athens to unite the country with Greece.
Only the Greek Cypriot south of the island joined the EU on May 1, after Greek Cypriots rejected a UN blueprint to reunify Cyprus.
Turkey only recognises the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus declared in 1983, whose inhabitants overwhelmingly backed the UN peace plan.
12/17/2004 14:08 GMT - AFP