By Jean Christou
JEWISH Nobel Peace Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has accepted an invitation to address a gathering of Greek and Turkish Cypriots on the island.
Speaking on behalf of the bicommunal businessman’s group, Greek Cypriot entrepreneur Constantinos Lordos said he expected the date of Wiesel’s visit to be announced next week.
Lordos said the gathering that Wiesel was expected to address would take place at the UN-controlled Ledra Palace hotel in Nicosia; he is slated to talk about “peace, friendship and rapprochement”.
The invitation to Wiesel was issued during this week’s joint Greek and Turkish businessmen’s meeting in Oslo, which he addressed in conjunction with a bicommunal gathering involving some 50 Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
Lordos said unsourced allegations in the local press yesterday, claiming that only one Turkish Cypriot businessman from the original Brussels group had attended the Oslo meeting, were false.
“The source who said that was not prepared to go on the record, but I am,” Lordos said. “There were three Greek Cypriot participants and three Turkish Cypriot participants.”
There were also three Turkish businessmen and two Greek businessmen.
The Turkish Daily News (TDN) also said yesterday that only one Turkish Cypriot had attended and that the others had decided to boycott the meeting.
Lordos said there had been fewer participants at the Oslo meeting, chaired by US presidential envoy Richard Holbrooke, because it had been decided that only a core element from the original Brussels group would attend.
Turkish and Turkish Cypriot officials described the entire proceedings as “fantasy” given the economic embargo by the Greek Cypriot side on the regime in the north.
But informed sources told the Cyprus Mail that it was in Turkish interests to play down the meeting and imply that it had been unsuccessful.
The source said Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash was “leaning hard” on the businessmen from the Brussels group, and that the three who had gone had defied him to attend the Oslo meeting.
“Denktash has been trampling on them and they eventually revolted and said ‘to hell with it, why can’t we talk’,” the source said.
Earlier this year, Denktash prevented several Turkish Cypriot women from leaving the country to attend a bi-communal group meeting in Brussels.
He cancelled all bicommunal contacts in December last year after the EU Luxembourg summit decision to open accession talks with Cyprus.
It was agreed at the Oslo meeting on Thursday that what was most important at the present time was how the two sides on the island could maintain contact.
The Oslo meeting also decided to push forward the initiatives taken in Brussels relating to joint projects.
These include the joint restoration of historical monuments, starting with Apostolos Andreas monastery in occupied Karpasia and the Hala Sultan Tekke mosque in Larnaca.
Other plans include the improvement of telecommunications between the two sides. A joint waste disposal project is also on the cards, as well as joint business ventures and sports tournaments.
The next meeting of the group is due to take place in Istanbul next November.
