BREXIT: Full extent of Turkey’s EU pound of flesh becomes clear

HISTORIC BLUNDER AS MERKEL PUSHES FOR REOPENING OF ERDOGAN SOVEREIGNTY CLAIMS ON NORTHERN CYPRUS NATO pressure suspected

Although the mainstream press continues to insist that Turkey’s Recep Erdogan is wooing the EU, pretty much everything coming back from the region and elsewhere suggests that, as The Slog revealed last Friday, Turkey is being given a fast-track towards membership of the European Union…..but it is Brussels that must succumb to Erdogan’s blackmail. And the price to be paid (in return for blocking further Islamic migrantion into Europe) is looking increasingly steep.

Sources in Washington, Brussels and Cyprus have confirmed during the last 36 hours that Angela Merkel will press for a ‘normalisation’ of Ankara’s occupation of Northern Cyprus – grabbed illegally by military force in 1974. While the ‘old’ mainstream media toe a line that says Erdogan is the one giving way – by returning Famagusta to the Greek Cypriots – in fact the Turkish leader is being told – by whom is unclear – he needs only to accept this principle in order for negotiations about the rightful ‘sovereignty’ of the island to be reopened.

Cyprus government sources have confirmed that the island would probably remove its veto for Turkey’s accession into the EU if Famagusta is returned to its rightful owners, but Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades is only prepared – even in principle – to remove the veto if Erdogan accepts that Cyprus is aligned with Greece in perpetuity.

Following a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu this week, Merkel yesterday confirmed the Slog story about accelerating Turkey’s EU accession process in a bid to secure Ankara’s cooperation in stopping the current migrant influx into the EU. This followed revelations that so-called ‘Syrian refugees’ – what The Slog dubbed ‘the Second Wave’ – had originated almost entirely from internment camps in southern Turkey.

But she is trying in secret to square a circle here. Cyprus has blocked six of 35 EU-Turkey negotiation chapters since 2009 because of Ankara’s refusal to recognise it. Not only is Turkey the only country blind to Greek Cypriot sovereignty, it’s also the only one to recognise a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence. And it flatly refuses to remove its 35,000 strong military force in the north of the island.

Not surprisingly, a great many Greek Cypriots and mainland Greeks suspect the hands of NATO and the US in all this. Revelations two years ago about the donation of undersea Greek Island exploration rights to Erdogan remain in place and undenied. But the broader EU ramifications of this dangerous policy don’t bear thinking about: primarily, they include handing votes to British eurosceptics already ill at ease about the rise of Islamism in their country – and the support it would give to Marine LePen’s Front Nationale in France.

Earlier at The Slog: British liberty raped, nobody notices

Filed under: Full extent of Turkey’s EU pound of flesh becomes clear Tagged: Angela Merkel, Brexit, Cyprus, Famagusta, Recep Erdogan, Turkey blackmails EU