Deadlock At The Hague Could Spell The End For Cyprus Reunification

by Lorys Charalambous, Tax-News.com, Cyprus

12 March 2003

Talks in the Hague on the re-unification of Cyprus broke down last night with the Turks unable to agree to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's plan to hold separate referenda on the issue in each community. It now leaves precious little time for both sides to agree before the EU accession treaty is signed on April 16.

As the respective leaders of both camps met separately with Annan to give him their official response to the UN plan of holding referenda on March 30, the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) reported that sources from the Greek side had agreed in principle to the plan. However, Annan received no such undertaking from the Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash. As a result, he pushed back the deadline for a final negotiating date from March 25 to March 28, delaying any referenda until April 6, which is perilously close to the accession treaty signature date on the 16th.

Although the Greek Cypriots seemed willing to move on the UN plan, even they had issues with some of the fine print. This, coupled with Denktash's long opposition to the proposal of a referendum, meant that an agreement at yesterday's meeting, which went well into the early hours of the morning, was unlikely.

In the run up to the meeting Denktash gave out a series of negative signals regarding the prospect of Turkish Cypriot acceptance of the agreement saying: ''The point which was clear was that we should not be going to The Hague to say 'yes'. If the answer is 'no' we should still go and explain to him (Annan) why it is 'no'.”

Denktash had been arguing that the UN proposal was a “complicated plan of so many pages, which makes references to laws and treaties”, adding: “There are parties, the parliament, the NGOs ... who could show a direction to the people. Now, pushing all these aside, you would leave the poor people to face a decision to say yes or no. This is not a correct approach, it is not democratic either."

In what was seen as a surprise attack on Kofi Annan, the usually moderate Turkish leader Tayipp Erdogan claimed that certain assurances had been broken by the Secretary General and that Turkish Cypriot concerns in this third version of the plan had not been addressed. "What Annan told us turned out not to be (in the plan). Promises were not kept," Erdogan told the liberal daily Radikal, adding: "Accepting the plan as it is does not seem possible."

Just where the two sides go from here is unclear. Absent and agreement, the Greek half of Cyprus will accede to the EU without the Turkish northern half. This would throw Turkey's plans of joining the union into confusion.

Rather ominously, Annan was very pessimistic on the chances of a resolution to the issue. He had already signalled that the March 10 conference was the last chance for the two sides to thrash out a provisional agreement, saying that failure would be the "end of the road" for the process. At a press briefing during Monday's talks, Annan told reporters that if the two sides missed the boat, another chance for a lasting settlement may not come "for a long, long time" concluding "I doubt it will come around again during my term as Secretary-general and I have another four years to go."

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