Denktash off to New York

TURKISH Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash yesterday left Istanbul for New York to hold talks with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

On his departure, Denktash said that the aim of his visit was to “disperse the adverse atmosphere created” by President Glafcos Clerides, who has just returned from a ten-day visit to New York.

He went on to claim that Clerides had used a tactic of agreeing to everything he knew the Turkish Cypriot side would reject. “What are we saying ‘no’ to?” he asked. “We are saying ‘no’ to fraudulence”.

He said the Turkish Cypriot side had decided to insist on “inter-state” relations after seeing through the Greek Cypriots’ “deception”.

He continued that the Greek Cypriot side had made it seem that “Denktash did not want unification” and that “Turkey will annex Cyprus”. It was the, he explained that he put forward his idea of confederation, to prove that “reunification is possible through the acceptance of two states.”

As well as Annan, Denktash is due to hold talks with US presidential envoy Richard Holbrooke today.

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