THE Greek Cypriot side has all the good will and determination to resolve the Cyprus problem by the end of the year as long as Turkey lends a hand, President Demetris Christofias said yesterday.
Speaking after a meeting with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou in Athens, Christofias said the Turkish side seemed to stalling with the aim of leading the talks to a deadlock and then asking the United Nations Secretary-General for a four-way meeting – the two sides, Greece and Turkey – to discuss the internal aspects of the problem and the guarantees, which are outside Ban Ki-moon’s mandate.
Christofias said these attempts were done on the sly and could not be accepted.
“We have all the good will and are determined, as long as Turkey lends a hand, to progress quickly, by the end of the year, to a solution of the Cyprus problem,” the president said. He stressed that such a solution must be viable and functional and should be acceptable to the people.
Christofias noted the Turkish Cypriot insistence not to discuss territorial readjustments in conjunction with the arrival of thousands of Turkish settlers and the issue of properties.
The president said Ban appeared to be sympathetic to linking the issues and stressed the need to “work with the UNSG and the international community to pressure Turkey and achieve this linkage.”
He said this was the key to have the best possible results in the talks before the next meeting with Ban.
Papandreou said the Cyprus problem was his country’s foreign policy’s main priority.
Without a resolution of the problem there cannot be full normalisation of relations between Greece and Turkey, Papandreou said.
Apart from the Cyprus problem, the two men also discussed energy issues.
“Greece and Cyprus have converging interests in the energy sector and on issued regarding maritime economic zones,” the Greek premier said.
He added that the two countries are in continuous coordination, examining developments together, “taking decisions, initiatives and making the necessary moves.”
Christofias said it was up to each state to exercise its sovereign rights, stemming from the Law of the Sea.
The Cypriot president said such issues need to be kept low key with more “action than words.”
Cypriot energy officials have said there are encouraging signs that sizeable hydrocarbon deposits lie on the sea bed, particularly between the island and Israel.
Noble, a US firm which has a concession over one Cypriot offshore block, is contractually obliged to start drilling in the area between October 2011 and October 2013.
Noble and its Israeli partners recently made one of the largest deepwater gas finds of the past decade at Leviathan, an offshore field 34 km away from the Cypriot block.
Leviathan contains an estimated 16 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas, with another 8.4 tcf estimated at an adjacent Israeli field, Tamar.
Cyprus’ move to open tenders for hydrocarbon exploration in 2007 drew anger from Turkey who claims the Turkish Cypriots also have a say on the matter.
