Clerides to raise Denktash `last chance’ proposals with Annan

By Jean Christou

PRESIDENT Clerides is expected to meet UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Durban this afternoon on the sidelines of the ongoing summit of the Non- Aligned Movement.

The meeting comes just days after the Turkish Cypriot side put forward its `last chance’ proposal for a loose confederation as a solution to the Cyprus problem.

According to reports from South Africa, Clerides wants to raise the latest developments with Annan. “This is just a good opportunity to talk” with Annan, a Greek Cypriot delegate told the Associated Press news agency.

“I don’t expect any new proposals to come out of it. They will just discuss the latest developments.”

Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash has already passed on the proposal to the UN which has long been pushing the pre-agreed bi-zonal bi-communal federation as a workable solution to the island’s 24-year division.

Denktash’s proposal has been rejected by the Cyprus government and by the majority of the international community, apart from the US which believes any negotiations between the two sides are better than none at all.

The Turkish Cypriot proposal was made on Monday by Denktash and Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem during Cem’s visit to the north.

Acting President Spyros Kyprianou hinted on Tuesday that the US had already been aware of the proposal before it was announced. Yesterday he criticised the Americans for their failure to reject promptly the proposal – as Security Council `Big Five’ members France, Britain, Russia and China had done.

US ambassador to Cyprus Kenneth Brill said they would study the proposal and that their main aim was to get negotiations going between the two sides.

“The United States is the only council (security) member that has failed to denounce the proposal,” Kyprianou said.

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.