THE Greek Cypriot side got off lightly in UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan’s critical report on the failed Cyprus negotiations, diplomats said yesterday.
They were responding to a seven-page letter sent by President Tassos Papadopoulos to Annan this week, which was circulated at the UN Security Council as an official document.
“The Secretary-general’s report was actually quite restrained,” one diplomatic source told the Cyprus Mail. “Papadopoulos has overreacted. He actually got off quite lightly.”
“Compared to what the Secretary-general’s report said about Rauf Denktash after the Hague last year, what he said about Papadopoulos was light and gentle,” said a second diplomat.
In his report last week, Annan had taken Papadopoulos to task over his emotional televised speech on April 7 urging Greek Cypriots to say ‘no’ in April’s referendum. According to Annan, EU accession weakened Greek Cypriot incentive to compromise, and the government was pursuing a less flexible policy. The Greek Cypriots had also failed to negotiate in a spirit of give and take, Annan said.
In his letter of response, Papadopoulos heavily criticised Annan’s report, and specifically UN Special envoy Alvaro de Soto and his team, for acting as “judge and jury” in a process they themselves presided over, ostensibly as “honest brokers”.
He also accused Annan of exceeding his good offices mission and contravening international law by calling on the Security Council to lift restrictions on the Turkish Cypriot community.
He added the report was full of “serious inaccuracies” and “wrong assumptions” and contained claims that were “unfounded and insulting”.
“It’s a very confrontational letter and clearly designed to continue to draw attention away from his culpability and to avoid facing the issue whether he really wants a settlement in terms designed to ensure that Turkish Cypriots won’t be subjugated,” said the first diplomat.
“The old neurotic smokescreen of arguments against any gestures of significance to the Turkish Cypriots remains untrammelled.”
The source said Papadopoulos’ letter (which is accompanied by a lengthy annex responding point by point to the report) was possibly even longer than Annan’s report on the negotiations and had obviously been drafted in a hurry to have it circulated at the Security Council before discussion began on Annan’s report.
“It’s riddled with inaccuracies and poor grammar and most of the arguments are as stale as cold coffee,” said the second diplomatic source, adding that no one had asked about it during the Council deliberations this week.
The first source also said that Papadopoulos` attempt drive a wedge between Annan and his team by blaming them for what he called a “flawed” negotiating process “had not gone unnoticed within the international community”.
To top off international frustration with Cyprus, Turkish Cypriot ‘Prime Minister’ Mehmet Ali Talat said this week that although his side was pleased with the report, which piled praise on the north for its ‘yes’ vote, Annan had left out a number of reconciliatory measures taken recently by the authorities in the north towards the Greek Cypriots.
The second diplomatic source said Talat was obviously frustrated that the Greek Cypriot side had got off so lightly in the report.
“We believe, however, that the Secretary-general’s report was fair and balanced in the case of both sides,” he said.
