TURKISH Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash said yesterday he would travel to New York to meet UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan on Tuesday, hours after saying the date fixed by the UN was a cruel imposition.
Speaking on arrival in the north after intensive consultations in Ankara, a tired Denktash said his trip to the US did not mean he accepted Annan’s terms for the resumption of talks.
Before leaving Ankara earlier yesterday the veteran 80-year old politician told reporters: “February 10 is an imposition. We did not decide on this date, they are putting our feet in one shoe. This is cruel… this should not happen. If the time is running out, it is not a problem, it happens if it will happen.”
Asked if attending the New York meeting would amount to accepting Annan’s conditions for a settlement, Denktash added: “This is what you’re saying, we’re not saying that.”
However, by the time Denktash had arrived in the north, he was ready to announce that he would go to New York, but made it clear that it was under protest and that he would be raising his objections to the Secretary-general.
“We’re going to a one-day meeting in New York. This does not mean that negotiations will have begun. This is a preliminary meeting that will determine whether or not negotiations can begin,” he said.
“I will be giving Mr Kofi Annan a letter outlining our objections.”
Denktash’s newly-elected ‘Prime Minister’, Mehmet Ali Talat, a pro-solutionist, will also be travelling to New York next week in what some see as a move by Ankara in case Denktash refuses to play ball. Turkey needs a Cyprus solution to further its own EU aspirations when its candidacy comes up for review in December.
According to Reuters, in his invitation to the two sides, Annan said he planned to fill in any blanks if talks were inconclusive but would “only do this with the greatest of reluctance”.
“Indeed I very much hope that this prospect would spur the parties to approach the effort with the determination required to come to terms in a timely fashion,” he wrote.
Annan has said that an agreement would be necessary by March 25 in order to have time to hold separate referenda in April so that a reunited Cyprus can join the EU on May 1 but Denktash said the timeframe was not realistic.
“Cyprus is a big wound which needs time to heal,” he said.
Turkey, Denktash’s patron, said it was still studying Annan’s letter laying out the preconditions for resuming the negotiations and said it did not agree with all its contents.
But Turkish government spokesman Cemil Cicek signalled yesterday that Ankara still had reservations about Annan’s plans.
“It’s clear that part of the text of Annan’s letter does not meet our expectations,” he told reporters, without elaborating.
Cicek also denied media speculation about a possible split between Turkey and Denktash, the man it has backed for decades with economic and military aid, over Cyprus’s future.
Ankara said last month that it would give carte-blanche to Annan to fill in the blanks on issues that remained unresolved in any resumption of negotiations if the Greek Cypriot side did the same. Neither Nicosia nor Athens matched Ankara’s offer, saying they preferred to wait to see how the negotiations would develop.
President Tassos Papadopoulos is not likely to turn down the UN invitation. He will meet with the National Council today after which all details would be announced, Government Spokesman Kypros Chrystomides told his daily press briefing.
Papadopoulos yesterday reiterated his readiness to engage in meaningful and substantial negotiations under UN auspices aiming for “a more functional and viable solution of the Cyprus problem”.”
“I am determined to do everything in my power so that a reunited Cyprus, with the basic human rights restored to all its citizens, can join the European Union as a full member on 1st of May 2004,” he said at a diplomatic function.”
EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen, who is expected to travel to New York with his own team, said yesterday he was confident a deal could be struck.
He said Annan would not have called for the resumption of talks if he did not have sufficient guarantees that his conditions would be met. “My view is that the resumption of talks means that the involved parties are basically already agreed that there will be a settlement,” Verheugen told reporters in Brussels after meeting Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.
“In the 21st century Europe we cannot have divided countries, barbed wires and landmines,” he added.
Gul said that Ankara had been instrumental in applying pressure for the resumption of talks and that he was returning to Ankara to evaluate the situation.
“It is our intention to finish everything before May, so we have to speed up everything,” he said.
Gul told reporters earlier in the day that Denktash had an “historic responsibility” and that the veteran Turkish Cypriot leader was part of the solution, “not part of the problem” as many alleged. “He contributed himself to the new position. He is supporting this process and he is ready to contribute even further.”
