BRUSSELS, June 28: The European Union decided for the first time on Wednesday to press ahead faster in accession talks with Croatia than with Turkey because of Ankara’s refusal to open its ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus.

A spokesman for the EU’s Austrian presidency said EU ambassadors had agreed to open detailed negotiations with both countries on competition policy but only with Zagreb on customs union issues.

That was because the European Commission has not finished screening the compatibility of Turkish customs legislation with EU law because of the Cyprus issue, he said.

The spokesman said it would be wrong to call the decision a decoupling since the two candidates were never formally coupled.—Reuters