A DATE for the resumption of Cyprus talks will be fixed in the next day or so UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan said yesterday in New York as all parties began to gear up for a last-ditch shot at a settlement before Cyprus joins the EU on May 1.
The only party whom Annan said he has not yet spoken to was Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, who left yesterday for Ankara with his new ‘prime minister’ Mehmet Ali Talat and coalition partner,‘deputy prime minister’ Serdar Denktash. The Turkish Cypriot politicians are expected to return to the north later today.
An announcement issued late last night in Ankara said that Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot side had agreed to support the good offices mission of the Secretary-general and “to work for a fair and lasting settlement in Cyprus” and to co-operate as it has always done up to now.
In his statements yesterday Annan referred to a series of consultations he recently had with the Prime Ministers of Greece and Turkey, President Tassos Papadopoulos and Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou.
“They have all indicated their willingness to resume talks and maintain the effort until we come to conclusion,” Annan said. “We don’t have much time. If we are going to meet the 1st of May deadline we should move fairly quickly. I intend to invite the parties very shortly and I think in the next day or so a date will be set”. He added that he intended to “get in touch” with Denktash.
A meeting took place in New York attended by the US State Department Co-ordinator for Cyprus, Thomas Weston, Head of the Mediterranean Desk at the British Foreign Office, Dominick Chilcott, former UN Special Advisor on Cyprus Alvaro de Soto and his assistant Robert Dunn, and other members of the old negotiating team.
All signs point to the return of de Soto to the helm, although the Turkish side has tried hard to have him removed from the picture. The international community along with Greece and the Greek Cypriot side would like to see De Soto as the mediator.
Sources close to New York consultations told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that De Soto’s return was a done deal despite the opposition of the Turkish side. “No one can tell the Secretary-general who will represent him, any more than he can tell the parties who will represent them,” said the source. “Should he be saying that he refuses to deal with Mr Denktash? He would certainly have grounds to do so based on the record.”
It was Denktash who walked out of the last round of talks at The Hague a year ago and declared the Annan plan dead and buried, putting an end to 18 months of intensive negotiations and angering the international community.
Recently however there has been a U-turn by Ankara on the whole issue of Cyprus and Denktash has been silent for weeks as Ankara and Athens have been engaged in intensive negotiations behind the scenes with the UN and the US.
Reports in the Turkish press yesterday quoted a member of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party as saying Ankara was determined to see in a solution with or without Denktash.
Diplomatic sources said there was “not a hope in hell” of Denktash resigning and that he would have no choice but to go along with Ankara on the resumption of talks.
“That story might be very deliberately placed to make it clear these talks are going ahead and in a sense to crimp Denktash’s range of roaming,” said the sources.
Turkey must show some progress on Cyprus to clinch its own EU accession date in December. With the two motherlands on board, US and UN pressure has come down hard on the two sides in Cyprus over the past few weeks.
Speaking on his departure for Ankara yesterday, Denktash said the Turkish Cypriot side would assess the meetings Erdogan had in the US. He confirmed he himself had not spoken to Annan. “I think that Annan is waiting for us to meet with Turkish government officials. He knows that I cannot give a certain response without holding talks with Turkish government.’’
A UN official said in New York yesterday that it was clear the talks would be conducted on the basis of the Annan plan and according to the preconditions set out in his report issued last year. Annan asked the two sides to show the necessary political will to see the talks through and to commit to a referendum regardless of the outcome.
Papadopoulos said yesterday he had spoken to Annan by phone on Tuesday night and that he again asked the Secretary-general for an invitation to resume talks.
Asked whether Annan’s preconditions had changed, Papadopoulos said: “He still insists on his terms “I made an appeal…during the course of the negotiations it will be clear whether it would be possible to set a date for referenda or make other arrangements to solve the pending issues.”
Speculation has been rife on the date of the resumption of talks. Annan has said there was little time and that negotiations should start as soon as possible in order to reach an actual agreement by the end of March and separate referenda by the end of April. Reports suggest that if Annan invites the sides on Friday, that talks would begin around February 15 in New York: Valentine’s weekend.
However sources in Nicosia said the most likely venue for the talks would be in Cyprus after the parties involved have gone to New York for a “group hug”.
It is believed that the UN in Nicosia has already begun preparations for the resumption of talks at Nicosia Airport where De Soto’s team carried out negotiations throughout 2002.
