FOREIGN Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides said yesterday that the Greek Cypriot side was willing to examine practical ways of speeding up the procedure of the Cyprus negotiations and give the United Nations Secretary-general a more active role in efforts to find a solution.
Cassoulides was addressing a news conference he called to respond to UN chief Kofi Annan’s decision to visit Cyprus later this month. It will be the first time a UN Secretary-general has visited in more than 20 years.
Annan on Thursday announced plans to come and meet President Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash in an effort to augment the face-to-face negotiations and make “decisive progress”, meeting the June target date for an agreement.The Secretary-general is expected to arrive on May 15 and stay for two or three days.
Cassoulides said yesterday the government welcomed the development, as well as the UN Security Council statement issued after Annan’s decision had been announced.
“Our side is pleased with the fact that the Council insists on a complete solution, one that is in line with UN decisions, and that it has called on the sides, in particular the Turkish Cypriots, to co-operate fully with the Secretary-general,” the minister said.
Judging by the Council’s statement, Cassoulides said he assumed Annan would come to Cyprus aiming “for peace, for a compromise and to speed up the negotiating procedure”. He said that the Greek Cypriot side was willing to examine practical ways of speeding up the procedure and give Annan a more active role in the talks.
Cassoulides did not rule out the possibility of the two sides exchanging ‘non-papers’, but he was adamant that they would not seal an interim agreement.
“Non-papers and proposals is one thing and an agreement is another,” he said, reiterating the government position that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”.
Security Council President Kishore Mahbubani said in his statement on Thursday that the body regretted that it had not been possible to make more progress during negotiations since the Council was last briefed on April 4.
The Council expressed the view that “the time has now come to set down on paper areas of common ground between the two sides, with the aim of establishing the component parts of a comprehensive settlement which takes full consideration of relevant UN resolutions and, where differences remain, to narrow and remove those through a process of negotiation focused on compromise formulations”.In a separate statement, US deputy permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador James Cunningham stressed the importance of resolving the Cyprus issue and the need “for more urgency in the negotiations to reach an agreement by the June target date”. Direct talks between Clerides and Denktash resume on Tuesday after the Easter break.
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.
