Turkish commitment on Cyprus is not recognition: Erdogan

BRUSSELS, Dec 17 (AFP) - Turkey's commitment to update a 1963 agreement to cover the European Union's 10 new members does not amount to a recognition of Cyprus, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday.
Turkey's promise to sign a protocol updating the 1963 Ankara Agreement by the time it starts accession talks on October 3, 2005 "is absolutely not a recognition," Erdogan said.
Although he hailed the outcome of the Brussels summit as "a reward" for his country's four-decade effort to join the European bloc, Erdogan said the Union had put forward discriminatory conditions for Turkey ahead of the summit.
"Conditions that have nothing to do with the Copenhagen (EU political) criteria, including some that are even in breach with the EU acquis and would have had no use in practice, were put forward," he said.
"In the intensive talks we had in the past two days, we tried to find formulae that would at least bring these in line with EU law," he added.

12/17/2004 17:35 GMT - AFP