PRESIDENT Tassos Papadopoulos yesterday rubbished claims that a document filed by the UN was unfair for the Greek Cypriot side and blamed the media for blowing the issue out of proportion.
But Foreign Minister George Iacovou said the document contained points that the Greek Cypriot side does not even consider debatable.
On Tuesday, UN special envoy Alvaro de Soto submitted a document separated into two parts – one with seven main points for negotiation and the other containing 12 secondary points regarding the functionality of the solution.
Iacovou said the first part was made up of issues that could be included in a give-and-take process, while the second concerned matters linked to functionality and similar issues.
The document only contained the titles of the various issues, which were “lacking” – “a fact that gave the impression that the document was unfair”, Iacovou said.
Iacovou said the document contained main points raised by the Turkish Cypriot side but omitted issues considered important by the Greek Cypriots.
The minister, however, did not want to say it had been De Soto’s intention to deprive any side of its positions or rights through the presentation of the issues in the document.
But President Tassos Papadopoulos contradicted his minister, or vice versa, suggesting that comments that the document was unfair were groundless and unnecessary.
Speaking after meeting UN undersecretary Sir Kieran Prendergast and De Soto, Papadopoulos said the document submitted by the UN envoy was just an agenda and that the Greek Cypriot side could add other issues if necessary.
The President criticised the media, suggesting that the problem concerning the document existed only in news reports.
One of the Greek Cypriot demands is the announcement of the number Turkish settlers and disclosure of the number of those who would vote in the referendum in the occupied north.
Prendergast declined to answer any questions.
Last night he and De Soto had dinner with Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash and this morning he is expected to meet Papadopoulos anew.
At the same time, the Irish Ambassador John Swift yesterday said neither the EU Presidency nor the European Commission supported the renegotiation of the island’s accession treaty.
“We do not support a new Accession Treaty, nor a new protocol; if, however, we have a new protocol, it would be impossible to have it ready by May 1,” Swift said.
He added that the EU Council did not want the inclusion in the solution of permanent derogations from the acquis, noting however that negligible arrangements, which did not breach EU principles, could be accepted.
“We want anything agreed to adjust within the shortest possible transitional periods; the way the EU tackles difficulties is through transitional periods but the presidency and the Commission do not wish for permanent derogations,” Swift said.
But Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Mehmet Ali Talat yesterday accused the EU of changing its words concerning the derogations.
Talat said EU officials had assumed an opposite attitude towards the issue compared to previous statements and had started to say “they would not accept long-term and permanent derogations”.
According to Talat, he had raised the issue with De Soto, who assured him it was the technocrats saying that and not the politicians.
But during a talk with EU Enlargement Commissioner Gunther Verheugen, he was told to forget about the previous statements and that what the technocrats were saying was valid.
Verheugen told him the EU would not accept Turkish Cypriot derogations, Talat said.
