BRITAIN’S special envoy for Cyprus Sir David Hannay said yesterday it would not be advisable for either side to interrupt the ongoing UN-sponsored proximity talks.
The future of the talks, due to resume in Geneva on January 26, has been hanging in the balance since Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash’s said he would not attend unless his breakaway regime in the north of the island was recognised.
The Greek Cypriot side has said President Glafcos Clerides will attend the talks as long as the format used until now does not change. Hannay said he did not foresee this happening.
“I cannot see how it serves anyone’s interest to interrupt, delay or frustrate the process, and I hope that any such negative developments can be avoided,” Hannay told journalists from both sides at the UN-controlled Ledra Palace hotel on Nicosia’s Green Line.
Hannay, who arrived in Cyprus on Wednesday after contacts with officials in Ankara and Athens, said his task was not to discuss the modalities of the next meeting but to reinforce his government’s strong support for the UN process.
Logistics and modalities, he said, would be a task for the UN special Cyprus envoy Alvaro de Soto, who is due on the island shortly.
“In our view. there is a chance for decisive progress in this year 2001,” he said. “What is needed now is to put flesh on the bare bones of what has been discussed up to now and my government and others in the EU and the US attach the very greatest importance to the continuance of this process.”
Hannay said that under Turkey’s partnership with the EU, hammered out at Nice in December, Ankara was expected to support the efforts of UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan.
“Whether or not Turkey is in fact doing that will become clear in the weeks ahead when Mr De Soto comes here. That will be the true test and that’s what I’m waiting to see,” Hannay said.
“I’m aware of what Mr Denktash has said and of what the Turkish government and the Prime Minister of Turkey said but I hope we shall nevertheless be able to move on and that is what we are trying to do.”
The British envoy said it was now up to De Soto and Annan to take the process forward. “We have to move on towards identifying and setting out the elements of an actual settlement because this has to become operative in 2001 if we are to get the decisive progress we are hoping for this year,” Hannay said.
“My own feeling is that the best tonic that the economy of the north of Cyprus could have is a settlement of the Cyprus problem and for the whole island to enter the EU. Anything else is less good than that.”
Hannay will have another meeting with Denktash today before leaving the island later in the day.
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.
