PRESIDENT Tassos Papadopoulos said yesterday he was not at all surprised that the US had welcomed the announcement of an initiative by Turkey on the Cyprus issue.
He also said the government yesterday sent its positions on the Turkish proposals to UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan. It was revealed yesterday that Annan had written a letter to both sides saying he would be sending an envoy to the region after the May parliamentary elections.
Papadopoulos made it clear there was no connection between Annan’s letter and the Turkish initiative.
Ankara said on Tuesday, as British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was due in Turkey, that it would lift the ban on Greek Cypriot air and sea traffic within its territory if the Greek Cypriots allowed a lifting of the economic isolation of the north.
Turkey is committed under the EU customs union protocol to open its ports and airports, so the government has dismissed the Turkish initiative as a ploy. However, the international community appears to have taken it on board as an issue worth discussing.
Latest to welcome the initiative after Britain, the EU and the UN, was the US, which views it as “an expression of Turkey’s willingness to advance a negotiated settlement of the Cyprus issue.”
US State Department spokesman Sean MacCormack said: “The proposal is also consistent with the Secretary-general’s 2004 recommendations that the international community set the stage for future reunification through easing the isolation of Turkish Cypriots.”
“We encourage the Secretary-general and the parties to take these ideas seriously in order to move the Cyprus settlement process forward,” he added. “We welcome all proposals that seek to break the current deadlock, and hope that all parties will engage and remain flexible and creative.”
Asked about the US stance yesterday, Papadopoulos said: “I am not at all surprised.”
Papadopoulos added that the government had written to Annan about the Turkish initiative and the Greek Cypriot side’s position. He said the Annan letter, which was sent on December 29, was obviously not related to the Turkish announcement on Tuesday.
In Davos yesterday Annan met Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. Annan told Erdogan he would study Ankara’s new proposals, but stopped short of committing the United Nations to new talks, reports from Davos said.
The two leaders met on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. Turkey wants a four-way meeting of officials from Turkey, Greece, and the two Cypriot communities. But UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe said that the Secretary-general “has undertaken to study the plan, consult other key players and contact the prime minister to determine the next step.”
However, Greece yesterday did not appear as enthusiastic as the other key players.
Greek Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis said the Greek government had carefully studied the Turkish proposals and the conclusion was that they did not differ from previous ones presented by the Turkish government, “which led nowhere”.
“The idea of a quadripartite conference on Cyprus has been revived. We firmly believe that such a forum is not the right framework for a discussion on the Cyprus problem, for the simple reason that the question of Cyprus is not a bilateral problem but an international one, which is discussed at the United Nations,” Molyviatis said.
Molyviatis said Greece would make every effort to create the right conditions that would lead to the resumption of Cyprus talks.
