Pursuing efforts to resolve the Turkish Cyprus stand-off, the UN announced on Thursday that Secretary-General Kofi Annan would meet Rauf Denktash in Salzburg on August 28, and proposed a resumption of the 'proximity' talks which were suspended last year.
Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides said he would respond "positively"
to a UN invitation to resume the talks on the island's division, while
Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash said he would do his best to help
resumption of the talks.
"Our position is that if the secretary-general calls for talks, having met Mr. Denktash, then we shall respond in a positive manner," Clerides told journalists in Nicosia.
"It is our duty to help the efforts for the resumption of the dialogue with the southern republic," the Turkish-Cypriot TAK news agency quoted Denktash as saying on Friday.
"We will discuss the information given by the (UN) Secretary-General within our government and if necessary in our parliament," Denktash told the agency.
Sources say that Denktas was pressurised by the US and the UK over the past month to meet with the secretary-general in New York alongside the General Assembly meeting in September, which is when Gafcos Clerides is due to meet Kofi Annan, but feared that he would be forced either to accept a document or be seen to 'walk out' yet again. Thus the Turkish Cypriot leader demanded the meeting be held in August and somewhere in Europe.
Last year's talks, aimed at creating a federated but unified Cyprus republic broke down in November when Denktash walked out, insisting that he would not budge on demands that the Turkish-occupied, northern part of the island should be recognized as an independent legal entity. Currently no nation recognises the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus other than Turkey itself, which invaded in 1974 fearing a military junta in Greece would try to annex the island.state.
The Greek-Cypriot government in Nicosia is leading the next wave of EU entrants, and fears are growing that despite the EU's repeated assurances that it will allow Cyprus to join whether or not the Turkish imbroglio is resolved, the reality is that this can't happen because of the damage it would do to the process of modernising Turkey and binding it into Western alliances. Turkey has threatened to annex the northern part of the island if Greek Cyprus joins the EU.
Last week Cyprus closed the 'environment' chapter in the accession process
and overtook the other candidate states in the number of 'chapters' of
EU law it has closed during accession talks. It now fulfills both the
economic and political criteria for membership, its citizens are relatively
wealthy and income levels are approaching the EU average.
George Vasiliou, Cyprus's head negotiator in EU accession talks and the country's former president, said recently: 'Most important is that when he (Denktash) goes back to the talks, he decides not to insist on his ideas of a confederation - of two states - because this goes against the major request of the European Union that Cyprus remain one state.' But Denktash's recent public statements indicate his stance has not softened. In early June, he told a Turkish-speaking Cypriot radio station that Cyprus should suspend its application to join the EU. Also, speaking on the 27th anniversary of the 20 July Turkish invasion of the island, Denktash explicitly ruled out a united Cyprus embracing both the Turkish and Greek communities.
Cyprus's Greek community is equally forthright. Two weeks ago, Nicosia's ambassador to the EU, Theophilo Thepiliou, told the Financial Times that Cyprus would join the EU regardless of Turkey's objections. He also noted that as a member, Cyprus would then be able to veto Turkey's eventual membership.
The United Nations secretariat has recently increased its efforts to find a formula for resuming the talks which would be acceptable both to Rauf Denktas and to Glafcos Clerides.
For its part, London is said to have been working hard to prepare proposals for a new Cyprus constitution. Britain's Cyprus envoy, Sir David Hannay, has prepared a document in close co-operation with U.N. special envoy Alvaro de Soto which could be presented at a suitable moment during a new round of Cyprus talks. The document is said to include "rotation of presidency and some key ministries" as demanded by the Turkish Cypriot side, but the level of sovereignty of the future Turkish Cypriot section of the Cyprus federation would depend to the amount of land concession Denktas would agree to.
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