Brussels - Turkey must open its ports to ships and aircraft from Cyprus immediately if it is to have any chance of moving closer to the European Union, the EU's executive said Wednesday.

And the country's ongoing tax-evasion case against media group Dogan Holdings effectively breaches the freedom of the press, the European Commission said in its annual report on Turkey's progress towards EU membership.

Turkey has "made no progress" towards opening up its ports to vessels from Greek Cyprus, despite repeated EU appeals to do so, and it is now "urgent that Turkey fulfils its obligation" to do so, the commission report said.

When the EU took in 10 new countries, including Greek Cyprus, in 2004, Turkey signed a deal promising to take all 10 into the customs union it already had with the bloc's pre-existing members.

But it refused to put the deal into practice for Greek Cypriot vessels, arguing that the Cypriots had violated the agreement by refusing to deal with vessels from Turkish-held Northern Cyprus.

In 2006, EU foreign ministers froze accession talks on eight subjects, out of a total of 35, because of the Turkish stance.

But since then, "Turkey has made no progress on normalising bilateral relations with the Republic of Cyprus," the report said.

The report, which is an annual feature of Turkey's EU membership talks, did praise the country for giving more respect to freedom of speech by cutting back on the use of Article 301 of the penal code, which foresees jail terms for "insulting the Turkish nation."

"As regards freedom of expression, article 301 (...) is no longer used systematically to restrict freedom of expression. Revision of this article led to a significant decline in prosecutions compared with previous years," the report noted.

But it warned that "the Turkish legal framework still fails to provide sufficient guarantees for exercising freedom of expression."

In particular, it singled out the tax-evasion case against media group Dogan Media Holding, a vocal critic of the current government, as damaging the freedom of the press.

"The high fines imposed by the revenue authority potentially undermine the economic viability of the Group and therefore affect freedom of the press in practice. There is a need to uphold the principles of proportionality and of fairness in these tax-related procedures," the report said.

However, it praised Turkey for beginning public-service broadcasting in Kurdish and Armenian. It also hailed Ankara's approval of the Nabucco gas pipeline and praised its improved relations with Armenia and its "constructive" diplomacy in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Turkey's EU membership is a controversial issue. France and Germany, in particular, oppose it, saying that it should have a "privileged partnership" instead. (dpa)