‘We shouldn’t talk about a shipwreck’

THE government said yesterday it was not correct to talk of shipwrecks or deadlocks when it came to the technical committees, but admitted there was a complication.

A day after President Tassos Papadopoulos raised eyebrows by talking of progress in getting the technical and working committees off the ground, Government Spokesman Christodoulos Pashiardis repeated that there was no deadlock.

On Monday, Papadopoulos had not appeared particularly optimistic and blamed the Turkish Cypriot side for a delay in responding to new Greek Cypriot proposals.

“We cannot and we should not speak either about shipwrecks or dead-ends,” Pashiardis said.

“What happened on Monday was a serious complication in the efforts to set up and operate the technical and working committees. We hope this complication will be resolved shortly so that the process for the full implementation of the July 8 agreement can develop smoothly.”

Papadopoulos on Tuesday appealed to the Turkish Cypriots to assist in immediately commencing the implementation of the July 8 agreement, barely 24 hours after talks between the two leaders’ representatives, Tasos Tzonis and Rasit Pertev appeared to grind into the ground. The two aides are due to meet again today.

Last July, UN Undersecretary for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari brokered the launching of a twin-track process on a technical and political level. Seven months later, the long-awaited talks have yet to get off the ground, the stumbling block until now being failure to agree on the agenda and the composition of the committees.

But Papadopoulos on Tuesday gave the impression that progress was around the corner, even though Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat did not appear to share the same view.

Talat accused Papadopoulos of hijacking the UN process in order to scupper current EU attempts to implement a direct trade agreement with the north.

He hit back at Monday’s accusations by Papadopoulos that he was blocking further progress on setting up the working groups and technical committees. Talat said the Turkish Cypriot side had not rejected anything.

Yesterday, Pashiardis said it was not the first time Talat had levelled accusations at the Greek Cypriot side. “And it will not be the first time that we will not answer these charges that do not help efforts for a productive dialogue,” he said.

He said the UN was well aware who was responsible for the current complications.

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.