GREECE said yesterday its European partners would pay a price for pressing to include Turkish Cypriots in talks on Cyprus's accession to the EU and repeated threats to block further EU enlargement.
Greece is angry at a move by the other 14 members to veer away from a previous agreement that Cyprus's membership be limited to its southern, Greek, sector.
The Greek Foreign Minister, Mr Theodoros Pangalos, said the German Foreign Minister, Mr Klaus Kinkel, and the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Malcolm Rifkind, had pushed for the change during an annual association council meeting between the EU and Cyprus in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday.
The confrontation between other EU states and Greece pushed entry talks on the divided island off the agenda of the Brussels meeting. Diplomats said the stance taken by Greece's EU partners was intended to put pressure on Athens to negotiate a settlement of the problems of the divided island and seek ways to ease, tensions with Ankara.