Turkey has offered to open up a port and an airport to trade and traffic with Cyprus in an attempt to break a deadlock that is threatening to derail negotiations on its accession to the European Union.

The proposal came as a verbal offer to Finland, which holds the rotating EU presidency, and would also involve finding a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem by the end of next year.

But it was quickly rejected by EU member Cyprus, which said that it could not accept the conditions attached - that a port and airport in the breakaway northern Cyrpus, which is recognised only by Ankara, be opened.

"This can never happen," a Cypriot Government spokesman told Reuters. "There is no possibility we would ever give consent to opening this airport because something like that would constitute indirect recognition of the pseudo-state."

It was also rejected by Greece, which pointed out that Turkey agreed to open up all its ports and airports to EU member states before entering into negotiations on accession.

The Turkish Government refused to confirm the details of the offer. But EU sources said that the Turkish proposal foresaw the mutual opening of both the seaports and airports within a year the resumption of UN-sponsored negotiations on the reunification of the island, which has been divided since the Turkish invasion of 1974.

Turkey signed a customs pact, known as the Ankara Protocol, agreeing to open its ports and airports to the ten countries that joined in the EU in 2004 - including Cyprus. But it does not recognise the Greek Cypriot administration and has refused to open its ports to Greek Cypriot trade.

The breakaway Turkish Cypriot statelet has one civilian airport, at Ercan, near the divided city of Nicosia, and one large commercial port in the eastern city of Famagusta. All traffic to both comes via Turkey.

The European Commission has recommended that the EU partially suspend entry negotiations with Turkey to punish it for that refusal and the Turkish offer appears to be an attempt to head that off before a decision at an EU summit in Brussels next week.

"This is a goodwill gesture aimed at strengthening Turkey’s hand and the hand of those EU members who are against a partial suspension of talks," Cengiz Aktar, a Turkish columnist and analyst, told Turkey's NTV.

The proposal was hailed as a "constructive move" by Finnish officials, keen to avoid a diplomatic row at next week's summit and was welcomed too by Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission.

"If that move can be confirmed I think it is certainly an important step towards full implementation of the Ankara protocol, and against that background I certainly welcome it," he said.

But there will have to be some serious arm-twisting if next week's summit is going to break the deadlock.

"Greece and Cyprus are opposed to the offer, but they oppose anything to do with Turkey. But the EU doesn't like to have this kind of unresolved dispute on its borders and they will come under pressure to back down," said David Charter, Europe Correspondent of The Times.

"The EU has tried in the past to resolve the question of northern Cyrpus and now that Cyprus is an EU member it might have to compromise, much as Turkey has to compromise and everyone else has to compromise.

"Northern Cyprus is not recognised by any EU members, however, so the question is, does this amount to recognition or is is simply a move to allow it some kind of economic advantage?"

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