Cordovez will be back

By Jean Christou

U.N. SPECIAL envoy Diego Cordovez is expected to return to the island in September, government spokesman Christos Stylianides said yesterday.

Speaking after a meeting between the UN envoy and President Clerides yesterday morning, the second in less than 24 hours, Stylianides said Cordovez was considering returning to the island soon.

He said Cordovez and Clerides had had “an exchange of views based on the current situation”.

“Mr Cordovez is thinking and investigating the possibility of resuming the negotiations,” Stylianides said, referring to the deadlocked intercommunal talks between the two sides.

Stylianides expressed the government’s readiness “at any moment” to discuss a procedure to solve the Cyprus problem based on UN resolutions, and particularly the Security Council’s most recent resolutions calling for the resumption of talks.

The resolutions angered the Turkish Cypriot side, and Rauf Denktash said on Thursday he had told Cordovez how he believed the current situation had come about.

As soon as the EU announced in December that it would open accession talks with Cyprus, Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots reacted with the cancellation of the intercommunal talks, and a series of joint resolutions moving the occupied north towards further integration with Turkey.

After his afternoon meeting with Cordovez on Thursday afternoon, Denktash said whether or not the intercommunal talks would resume would depend on the UN “finding a middle road”.

Cordovez was expected to meet Denktash again yesterday afternoon at a working dinner in occupied Nicosia.

Since he began his meetings on Thursday, Cordovez has declined to make any comments. He is, however, expected to answer questions at a bicommunal press conference today at the UN-controlled Ledra Palace Hotel.

He said a third meeting with the two leaders was unlikely before he left the island later today.

The UN envoy will end his visit with a private meeting with the UN’s new permanent representative on the island Ann Hercus, who arrived yesterday.

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.