Government denies $25 billion land compensation report

THE GOVERNMENT yesterday denied reports that a $25 billion property compensation plan had been drawn up in the event of a solution to the Cyprus problem.

Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou said there had been no discussion of the issue of compensation or exchange of property on the Greek Cypriot side.

Papapetrou was responding to a report in yesterday’s Politis, which claimed that President Glafcos Clerides would take a formula for compensation to the third round of UN-led proximity talks due to begin in New York in May.

"The essence of the matter is centred on priorities other than estimation of compensation," Papapetrou said yesterday. "The priority is the solution of political issues."

Property is one of the four core issues on the table along with territory, security and constitution.

Papapetrou did confirm that a team of experts had produced a report to prove the legal impossibility of a general exchange of property.

This study was tabled by president Clerides at the first round of proximity talks in New York last December, Papapetrou said.

Quoting unnamed experts, Politis estimated the value of Greek Cypriot property in the north to have been in the region of £1.95 billion in 1974.

With values doubling every eight years, today’s evaluation would make abandoned Greek Cypriot properties worth between $20 and $25 billion (CY£15.5 billion). The experts quoted said the idea of any country paying out this sort of compensation was unreal.

US ambassador Donald Bandler said yesterday the international community would like to see more discussion across the board on the four core issues during the next round of talks, "under the circumstances of the year 2000".

"The international community, and we share this view, has stressed the need for the third round of talks to be even more substantive that the prior rounds," Bandler said after a meeting with Clerides yesterday.

Bandler also said that there would eventually have to be direct negotiations between the two sides in order to bridge the differences.

"Eventually there will have to be direct exchanges and signatures on the dotted line with the direct involvement of the leaders," Bandler said.

But he made it clear that the proximity formula was the only way forward for the moment.

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.