Frantic telephone calls followed by a last-minute dash to the airport to board a waiting plane - many Turks believe such drama has become an essential component of their country's push to join the European Union.
Hours behind schedule, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul only flew to EU talks in Luxembourg on Monday when he could be sure the bloc's foreign ministers had resisted Cyprus's demand that Ankara first move towards recognising the island state.
Once there, Gul concluded talks on science and research, the least contentious of 35 policy areas that Turkey must work through. But Cyprus noted it would have many more chances to block Turkey's membership bid as negotiations inched forward. "The Cyprus problem is taking Europe and the Turkish European process hostage," said Gul, clearly frustrated.
The delay in his departure for Luxembourg had recalled similar cliff-hanger talks among EU member states in October which finally led to the launch of Turkey's entry negotiations.
The past eight months have done nothing to lessen Turks' suspicions that the EU does not really want to admit the large, Muslim country. For its part, the EU accuses Ankara of doing next to nothing on the reform front since starting the talks.
"It seems Turkey is always on the threshold of some new crisis in its relations and it steps back from the precipice at the last minute," said Mehmet Dulger, a member of the ruling AK Party and head of parliament's foreign affairs committee.
"It is becoming harder for us parliamentarians to explain to the Turkish public why we want to join an EU which practises such double standards," said Dulger, who is staunchly pro-EU.
"We do not understand how the EU, made up of 25 countries, can be held to ransom by tiny Cyprus." The Mediterranean island is represented in the EU by the internationally recognised Greek Cypriot government. Ankara backs a breakaway Turkish Cypriot enclave in the north of the island and says it will only recognise the Greek Cypriots as part of a comprehensive peace settlement under UN auspices - the kind the Greek Cypriots rejected two years ago.
"I think it is very hard for the government to make a concrete move (on Cyprus) this year. They could surprise us, but as elections approach they may want to avoid the cost," said Pars Kutay, a consultant on EU affairs.
"In this sense, Turkey is entering a period of uncertainty." Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan must call a general election by November 2007. In the opinion polls, his centre-right AK Party, with roots in political Islam, remains far ahead of its rivals, but nationalism is also on the rise in Turkey.
"The kind of drama we saw on Monday ... will fuel nationalist feelings further ... The EU is becoming a hard sell in Turkey," said Cenally to the challenges thrown up by the EU. Support for EU membership has fallen in Turkey since the entry talks began to around 59 percent from above 70 percent.
The government is especially concerned about growing support for the ultra-nationalist MHP, which could deny the AK Party a clear majority in the next parliament.
Erdogan also has to contend with the hostility of Turkey's secular establishment, including the powerful armed forces, which has long suspected the AK Party of using the EU as a cover to ease restrictions on religious expression.
"The government is squeezed into a corner. It wants more reforms but it has come to the limits of what it can do without risking turmoil," said Dogu Ergil of Ankara University, alluding to resistance within the bureaucracy and security forces.
Others are less indulgent towards the AK Party, in power since 2002 and enjoying a big parliamentary majority.
"If we had done our homework better, the mood in Luxembourg would have been better," said Semih Idiz, diplomatic editor at CNN Turk private television and a veteran EU observer.
In Luxembourg on Monday, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn again urged Turkey to bolster human rights, to increase freedoms for non-Muslim minorities and to improve living conditions in its impoverished, mainly Kurdish south-east region. "There will be no real progress in negotiations if political reforms slow down or regress," Rehn said.