THERE has been much speculation, some of it plain ridiculous, about the reasons for the UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s arrival in Cyprus today. The timing and usefulness of the visit have been questioned. Some have absurdly claimed that he was coming to help Mehmet Ali Talat’s re-election prospects while others have insisted that his arrival was a triumph for Turkey’s communications game – the implication being that Ankara had recruited Ban to create the impression there was progress in the talks.
It was not only the opposition parties who saw the high profile visit as part of a communications game, but also President Christofias, who conveyed this view last Tuesday through his trusted associate, the AKEL general secretary. Interestingly, before visiting New York in January 2004, to meet Kofi Annan and agree to the peace procedure that led to the referendum, the late Tassos Papadopoulos and his associates had also insisted that the initiative was a Turkish communications game. It was not then, and it is not now.
The Turkish government has been pushing for a speeding up of the peace procedure, for some time now, and Prime Minister Erdogan has said that there would be a settlement in 2010, an assertion oft-repeated by his foreign minister. Everyone outside the Republic of Cyprus has taken this declaration of intent seriously, which is why the efforts by the international community have been stepped up and we are currently witnessing a flurry of diplomatic activity. Ban met the foreign ministers of Cyprus, Greece and Turkey in London on Thursday while the latter two had a long meeting on the same day. The prime ministers of the two countries have also been in touch.
With the international community convinced that Ankara wants a settlement and negotiations in progress, but moving very slowly, there is the fear that the procedure will fizzle out and the opportunity for a deal lost. The international community does not want this to happen, as an unsolved Cyprus problem has adverse effects on Turkey’s EU accession course and has rendered co-operation between the EU and NATO very difficult, according to the Commission. This is why there is still a real interest in a solution and so much time and money has been invested in this procedure.
There are expectations and the Secretary-general has decided he needs to instil some much needed urgency into proceedings which cannot be left to drag on indefinitely, as Christofias seems to want. Practical considerations also need to be taken into account – a large number of UN experts are here to help Alexander Downer’s team, and cannot stay for another two years hoping that their services will eventually be required. And Downer does not seem like a man prepared to hang around, while the two leaders play meaningless tactical games.
The Secretary-general’s visit was not decided on the spur of the moment as some reports from New York implied, but was planned after consultations with all parties involved. And it is not part of any communications game – Ban has better things to do than have his photo taken with Talat and Christofias – but a genuine attempt to speed up the process. The likelihood is that he will ask the leaders to carry on the intensive talks, regardless of the elections in the north and try to set a time-frame, which is neither artificial nor suffocating, for arriving at an agreement.
We will know more tomorrow when a joint communiqué is issued and the two leaders are expected to hold a joint news conference with Ban to answer questions about the progress made and future steps. That both sides were working with the UN for the drafting of a joint communiqué is a positive step, as are reports that they have agreed to continue the intensive talks in February. With substantial progress having been made on various aspects of governance and power-sharing, according to Downer, Ban’s intervention could help bring it to closure.
But even if he cannot make such an announcement his visit would still have been necessary, as it would have placed an additional weight of expectation for greater progress on the two leaders. And we are sure he will make it clear to both men that they have reached a stage in the process, from which there is no turning back.
