Cyprus Parties Edge Towards Accepting UN Plan

by Lorys Charalambous, Tax-News.com, Nicosia

20 November 2002

After consultations with his National Council, Greek Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides yesterday told UN special envoy Alvaro de Soto that the UN plan for Cyprus was acceptable as a basis for negotiations.

Greek Cypriot Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou said: "The National Council proposed by majority to reply to the United Nations Secretary-General that it accepts to negotiate his proposal with the settlement of the Cyprus problem as the objective."

Turkish Cypriots pleaded for more time as leader Rauf Denktash remained hospitalised in New York, although Turkey's unofficial leader Tayyip Erdogan said in Athens that he supported efforts to solve the Cyprus problem.

Both sides say that the timetable set by the UN is unrealistic. "The timeframe which has been proposed is suffocatingly tight, and therefore the dates should not be considered binding," Papapetrou said. Erdogan said: "On the matter of the date, it's impossible for this to reach (a result) by the December 12 Copenhagen summit in these circumstances. Therefore keeping this under the pressure of time would be wrong."

Erdogan was in Greece for discussions with Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis, which led both parties to make emollient statements on Greek/Turkish relations. The Turkish leader said that a new Turkish government would be formed within days, and that it would energetically support negotiations over Cyprus.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan, on a tour of the Balkans, was non-comittal about the Turkish request for an extension, but de Soto said: "We are well aware that time is pressing and the clock is ticking and the SG knew this very well when he submitted these proposals to the two sides."

"If you read the proposal more carefully, you will realise that the calendar is essential, an integral, an inseparable part of the proposal. So if the proposal is accepted as the basis for negotiations, you really have to have a firm commitment on both sides to try to reach a settlement before that date.

"There are certain conditions that are prevailing now that are particularly favourable for a settlement. We are not at all sure that those conditions will prevail after Copenhagen."

Mr de Soto was referring to the December 12 EU summit, when the EU will formally invite Cyprus and nine other candidates to join the Union in 2004. Although no-one is saying so, it is obvious that if the EU sticks to its promise to admit Cyprus, divided or otherwise - and it has little choice in the face of the threatened Greek veto of the whole enlargement process (dream on, France) - then there will be little incentive for the Greek Cypriot side to make the kind of concessions from within the EU that would be necessary for a settlement.

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