Both leaders being undermined from within

THERE ARE parties in both the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities undermining the solution process, a delegation of members of the European Parliament High-Level Contact Group for Relations with the Turkish Cypriots found during its visit this week.

Libor Roucek, Coordinator of the group, told journalists at a news conference yesterday there was no

“magic solution”  for the negotiation process but said he believed the leaders were sincerely trying to get a successful, lasting solution.

“This is not easy because sometimes members of [the leaders’] own communities do not help them in the negotiating process,” he said, adding that parties in both communities “undermine the process.”

“I personally admire the will and energy of both leaders in these difficult circumstances to find a solution,” he said.

Roucek also said the European Parliament would “wait for the outcome” of the negotiations before implementing any new programmes designed to “ease the economic isolation” of Turkish Cypriots.

He emphasised however that their implementation would “depend” on the outcome, implying that a solution was not necessary for such measures to receive a green light.

The European Commission allocated €259 million in 2006 to the Turkish Cypriot community in the form of development aid and trade measures in a bid to stimulate economic development in the ‘TRNC’.

This week’s first of three visits planned by the Group for 2010 included meetings with House President Marios Garoyian and Special Advisor to the United Nations on Cyprus Alexander Downer, and a visit to the anthropological laboratory in the buffer zone, where the Committee on Missing Persons conducts its work.

The European Parliament High-Level Contact Group for was established in 2005 to “put an end to the isolation of the Turkish Cypriot community and to facilitate the reunification of the island” with a particular emphasis on the economic integration of the island and on improving contacts between the two communities and with the EU.

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.