(BRUSSELS) - The European Union relaunched membership talks with Turkey on Thursday, ending a long hiatus caused by Ankara's refusal to respect its trade obligations to Cyprus.

After a half-hour meeting, Turkey's chief EU negotiator Ali Babacan welcomed the move and said the government in Ankara would unveil a plan next month to accelerate the process of reform needed to join Europe's rich club.

"Today's accession conference has marked another important step in Turkey's accession process," he said. "This step testifies to the determination of Turkey to continue with its process of reform and the EU accession process."

The conference saw the opening of the second of 35 policy negotiating areas -- or chapters -- with Turkey. It concerns "enterprise and industry policy".

The move comes three months after the EU froze eight of the policy areas, or chapters, to punish the government in Ankara for failing to fully extend its customs agreement with the bloc to EU member country Cyprus.

Chapters may be opened but not closed until the dispute is resolved.

"The political message is that the process continues, but not under the same conditions as before," an EU official close to the process told AFP. "We haven't completely stopped the train, but it's moving more slowly."

When the freeze was announced, the Union also criticised Turkey's human rights record, especially on freedom of religion and women's and minority rights.

"EU-Turkey relations are in a difficult period," Babacan told reporters in Brussels. "It is important for both sides to manage the process in a sensible and sensitive way."

Turkey's membership talks, which began in October 2005, have been plagued by difficulties and the only policy chapter opened before was "science and research" in June.

The talks have barely moved since then.

Many member nations are wary of inviting in a huge, relatively poor and mainly-Muslim state which would, under EU rules, have voting rights similar to major powers like Britain or Italy.

Babacan said Ankara would present a programme in April charting a timetable for reform from 2007-2013 which could be achieved regardless of political problems, like those posed as the EU struggles with its constitution.

"In a way, we will be announcing a programme by which we will be continuing our reforms and this programme will cover all the 35 chapters, even those chapters which will not be opened because of issues ... relating to Cyprus."

"We have decided not to wait but just proceed full speed ahead. We have no time to lose, and Turkey needs reforms in a very short time period."

He noted that the EU's institutional problems and the opposition of some countries to Turkey's membership had created "disappointment, frustration, disillusionment" among political leaders and the public alike.

Cyprus was divided in 1974 when Turkey seized its northern third in response to an Athens-engineered coup in Nicosia aimed at uniting the island with Greece.

Turkey refuses to open its ports and airports to Greek Cypriot traffic until the EU lives up to its pledge to end the isolation of the Turkish Cypriot statelet in the north of the island, which is recognised only by Ankara.

"The EU has made a decision (in 2004) to lift these embargoes, to bring the isolation to an end, and we are simply waiting for that political commitment to be fulfilled," Babacan affirmed.

"We will not be able to make progress on the ports and airports issue unless the isolation comes to an end. This is our position at any cost," he said.

On January 22, the 27 EU countries agreed to work more quickly toward lifting the trade isolation of the far poorer north of the divided island.

"Nowadays there is some efforts on the EU side," Babacan conceded. "But of course we will have to see how it goes on."

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