PRESIDENT Tassos Papadopoulos has asked UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan resume talks on the Cyprus issue a day after the UN Security Council urged the two sides to return to the negotiating table.
Negotiations collapsed in March this year when Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash refused to take the Annan plan to a referendum in the north, prompting the Secretary-general to wash his hand of the two sides until they were ready to talk.
Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides said yesterday that President Tassos Papadopoulos had written a letter to Annan asking him to resume the talks.
”The President has sent a letter to the Secretary-general asking him to reengage in the Cyprus problem with a view at resuming talks,” Chrysostomides told his daily press briefing.
Chrysostomides said Annan’s demand to determine a date for a referendum was not feasible “because the plan is not complete at present”.
“This term basically puts the cart before the horse and this term is not feasible in the sense that it is premature,” he added.
On Thursday the UN Security Council urged the Turkish Cypriot leadership and all parties concerned to strongly support the Secretary-general’s efforts and called for an immediate resumption of Cyprus talks on the basis of his proposals.
In a statement by the Council’s President after unofficial deliberations, the members of the Security Council welcomed the fact that the majority of Turkish Cypriots had expressed their desire for a solution to the Cyprus problem and for accession to the EU during Sunday’s elections in the north.
”This result is all the more noteworthy given pressures faced by the Turkish Cypriots to support the status quo,” the statement said.
The Council expressed the hope that all parties in northern Cyprus and all other concerned parties would honour the desire of the majority of Turkish Cypriots as soon as possible.
“The members reiterate their full support for the good offices of the Secretary-general as entrusted to him in Security Council resolution 1250. They urge the Turkish Cypriot leadership and all parties concerned to strongly support the Secretary General’s efforts and, in this context, call for an immediate resumption of the talks on the basis of his proposals,” the Security Council statement said.
Chrysostomides also described as “unfair” comments made by US State Department Coordinator for Cyprus Thomas Weston at a news conference on Thursday.
Weston, in answer to a reporter’s question on whether Papadopoulos had shown the necessary political will to return to talks, declined to be specific on who was willing and who was not, saying only that all four parties involved in the Cyprus issue should comply with Annan’s criteria for the resumption of talks.
”It is unfair to put all sides on an equal par, if this is what Thomas Weston means,” said Chrysostomides. “I believe this remark is addressed to the Turkish side but Weston has refrained from actually saying so. Neither the European Union nor anybody else does, for that matter,” he said.
Chrysostomides said international pressure should clearly be directed to the unwilling side and the intransigent stance it has maintained. “What Weston is doing is to avoid saying so and this is what I consider unfair because in theory he places the two side on the island on an equal par,” he added.
