‘CYPRIOTS CAN’T have it both ways, wanting UN involvement to set the basis of the talks on the one hand, and refusing arbitration or mediation on the other,’ was UN Special Adviser Alexander Downer’s parting message from Larnaca Airport yesterday.
Downer noted the process was a Cypriot one and was not guided by the UN, so it was up to Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots and their respective leaders to decide whether they wanted a solution or not.
Before leaving, the Australian diplomat, who will brief the UN Security Council next week in New York, read out a statement agreed by the two sides which purports to overcome the latest impasse in the talks.
“The talks are continuing on the agreed United Nations basis. All chapters are being negotiated with the aim of increasing the points of convergence on the understanding that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” said the statement.
Downer said he was satisfied with the fact that the two leaders’ respective aides, Georgios Iacovou and Kudret Ozersay, met for three and a half hours on Thursday and “thrashed out” the above two sentences.
“That has been agreed to by the leaders. And we are pleased that that matter has been resolved,” he said.
President Demetris Christofias raised a few eyebrows on Thursday morning when he tried to cancel his second-ever meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu ten minutes before it was due to start. Christofias charged Eroglu with backtracking on the agreed basis of the talks after coming under “big pressure from the opposition”.
The two leaders ended up meeting an hour late and for 15 minutes only on foot. They agreed to let their aides work out a solution, resulting in yesterday’s brief statement which allows both sides to return to the negotiating table without losing too much face.
Downer said the two aides will meet again on June 9 to discuss property, noting that “the process is moving ahead”. While no specific date has been set for the two leaders to meet, Ozersay was quoted giving June 15 as a possible date.
Asked whether the UN should be more active in indicating who strays from the basis of the talks, Downer responded: “Well I think the UN, as usual, has done a very good job, and very honourable job, and a very decent job. But we are not party political players in Cyprus; we are not a political party; we are not spokespeople for a political party; we don’t play politics.”
He has been told repeatedly by the government and all the political parties “that the UN is not to exercise arbitration or mediation”, said Downer, noting that the UN has faithfully stuck to its commitment not to have arbitration or mediation.
Driving the message home, he added: “We are quite happy to take messages between the two sides. We always give our opinion if anyone seeks our opinion. But people can’t have it both ways; they can’t, on the one hand, say ‘we have to sort everything out and we the Cypriots are not responsible for everything’, but on the other ‘we don’t want any arbitration or mediation by the United Nations’. Our role is a very low key role.”
Asked whether he was optimistic about a solution, Downer said it’s not just the two leaders that have to want a solution, but the public too. If the UN is not to play a more active role in the talks, then it is up to the Cypriots to be “responsible for their own destiny, their own future and their own decisions”.
If the people of Cyprus want a solution, they can have one. “If they don’t want one it is clearly impossible to do. So all of them must ask themselves ‘do I really want an agreement?’,” he said.
“This is an agreement which is within the grasp of the leaders…But the question is whether people want it or not, not the leaders alone, but whether the public want it or not. The future of this country is in your hands,” he added.
