EU sets date for start of talks with Turkey, but Cyprus wrangling looms News
EU sets date for start of talks with Turkey, but Cyprus wrangling looms

[JURIST] European Union leaders agreed Thursday on a date of October 3, 2005 for the start of official talks with Turkey regarding its potential accession to the European Union. The European Parliament voted for the opening of talks earlier this week. At the same time, however, EU leaders are insisting that Tukey normalize its relations with Cyprus by that time, raising the spectre of political difficulties with Ankara over an extremely sensitive issue. Turkey supports a separate Turkish enclave in the north of the island and does not recognize the Greek Cypriot government in the south. Read the press release on the start of accession talks issued by the EU's Dutch Presidency here. Reuters has more. The EU provides background material on its relations with Turkey.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

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