Washington says package-deal not on the cards

THE STATE Department yesterday dismissed suggestions the US was looking to solve the Cyprus problem in tandem with other Greco-Turkish issues.

“The US is not proposing a new set of negotiations or any other approach that would link these issues in some sort of package deal,” State Department spokesman James Rubin stated in Washington.

Cyprus, Greece and Britain all rushed to reject what was seen as a package- deal proposal from US President Bill Clinton who, speaking in London on Monday, said the Cyprus problem, Aegean dispute and Turkey’s EU aspirations could not be dealt with in isolation. “We will have to proceed on many fronts at one,” Clinton had said.

“There is no new policy,” Rubin said yesterday, adding that Clinton had done nothing more than re-state long-standing US policy. “We want to help Greece and Turkey resolve their problems peacefully. We want to help solve the Cyprus problem and we strongly support Turkey’s EU aspirations,” the spokesman said.

Rubin said that while a package-deal was not on the cards, the US did “believe, as the President indicated, that progress in one area can improve the climate and the atmosphere for progress in another.”

“But they are still separate issues being dealt with separately, through diplomatic channels,” he said.

The State Department’s Cyprus Co-ordinator, Thomas Miller, is expected on the island later this month for talks aimed at re-starting stalled settlement negotiations.

In Cartagena, Colombia, meanwhile, Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides has condemned the Turkish side for making international recognition for the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ a pre-requisite for the talks to re- start.

Speaking before the ministerial meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on Tuesday, Cassoulides said these demands contravened international law.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.