The meeting brought together Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who led the Turkish delegation, joined by State Minister and chief EU negotiator Egemen Bağış, with the EU Troika, which consists of EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Diego López Garrido, the secretary of state for the EU at the Foreign Ministry of Spain, the next EU term president.
The EU opened accession talks with Ankara -- an EU candidate since 1999 -- in October 2005, but these have been progressing slowly amid opposition from France and Germany. The unresolved Cyprus dispute and a slowdown of reforms in Turkey are other factors hampering the accession process. While suspending eight negotiation chapters with Turkey due to its refusal to open its ports and airports to Greek Cypriot traffic, the EU said it will review the situation by the end of 2009.
The latest ministerial meeting of the Turkey-EU Troika was held in Prague in April during the Czech Republic’s term presidency of the 27-member bloc. In addition to the Cyprus conflict, the international dispute over Iran’s controversial nuclear program was high on the agenda of Thursday’s meeting.
