By a Staff Reporter
THE U.S. SPECIAL envoy on Cyprus vowed yesterday to put pressure on the Turkish Cypriots to reconsider their rejection of the Kofi Annan peace plan and let the island enter the European Union reunited next year.
Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash was widely blamed for the collapse of the direct talks in March after he refused to accept the land and population transfers sought in the plan.
Even without a settlement, the European Union intends to admit Cyprus on May 1, 2004 — a move that could wreck Turkey’s own ambitions to open accession talks with the bloc.
“(A settlement) requires a lot of work and contact between the United States, the European Union, EU member states and others,” Washington’s envoy Thomas Weston told reporters after talks with senior EU officials in Brussels.
“We are still in a situation where we have to overcome a tremendous amount of distrust… But I see a chance (for an agreement) and I think we all have to work for it,” he said.
Weston will have further talks on Cyprus in the coming days in Rome, Athens, Ankara and in Nicosia with the leaders of both communities.
“A solution to the Cyprus problem can only help Turkey’s own relations with and advancement towards the EU,” he said.
The European Union has offered the Turkish Cypriots an aid package and has eased trade restrictions in a bid to bring them on board. Denktash immediately rejected the aid.
Asked whether Denktash was the biggest obstacle to a settlement, Weston said: “The main stumbling block is that there is too much history on the island of Cyprus.”
He praised the Turkish Cypriot decision in April to relax restrictions on the movement of people across a Green Line, but added: “These measures are not a substitute for a settlement and don’t diminish the need for a settlement.” (R)
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.
