Forget talks before 2008

PEACE talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriots are unlikely to resume before 2008, Turkish Cypriot ‘foreign minister’ Serdar Denktash said yesterday, adding to the growing gloom over international efforts to solve the decades-old problem which now threatens Turkey’s EU bid.
“I don’t see how it is possible to sit at the negotiating table at least until after the Greek Cypriot presidential elections in February 2008,” Denktash, told Turkey’s NTV news channel.
“We cannot keep our hand for peace to Papadopoulos suspended in the air indefinitely,” said Denktash.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey was also pessimistic about prospects for Cyprus reunification during talks at the UN in New York on Thursday.

Erdogan is worried Cyprus, which entered the European Union last year, will try to hamper Turkey’s own planned entry talks with the bloc, due to start on October 3.

And the Cyprus government was yesterday incensed at comments by Annan that he would bring a May 2004 report on Cyprus to the UN Security Council for adoption. The report was highly critical of the Greek Cypriot side in the aftermath of its rejection of the Annan plan the month before, and called for moves to end the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots.

The Greek Cypriots have since successfully blocked efforts by the EU to ease the economic isolation of the Turkish Cypriots as a reward for their backing of the Annan plan last April. The Greek Cypriots comprehensively rejected the plan.

“The Turkish Cypriots’ confidence in the international community is decreasing,” Denktash said yesterday.

During his visit to the United States this week, Erdogan won a pledge from President George W. Bush to look at ways of ending the Turkish Cypriots’ international isolation.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.