ABSTRACT
The Turkey-European Union (EU) and the EU-NATO relationships suffer from exactly the same (mis)fortune. Paradoxically, it was when both these relationships had reached their high points that they were severely tested. As per the decision of the European Council on 17 December 2004, the EU’s accession negotiations with Turkey commenced on 3 October 2005. Ironically, it was around the timing of this momentous decision in the history of relations between the EU and Turkey that Turkey’s accession process came to a halt. In the case of NATO-EU bond, a comprehensive framework of strategic cooperation was concluded by the EU’s High Representative and NATO’s Secretary General on 17 March 2003 through a classified exchange of letters, after four years of acrimonious negotiations. Again, ironically, even before the ink was dry on the so-called ‘Berlin Plus’ arrangements, NATO-EU relations entered into a deadlock. Alongside this twist of fate, the NATO-EU divide and the deadlock over Turkey’s EU accession process have a shared raison d'être: the Cyprus issue.1
