PRESIDENT Christofias was partially correct in predicting that nothing would come of the talks in Greentree. There was no breakthrough in the deadlocked procedure while the progress achieved, according to the UN Secretary-General, was ‘limited’ despite the ‘intensive and robust’ discussions.
What did come out of ‘Greentree 2’ was a change of peace procedure, as the three ‘nos’ Christofias was authorised to utter by the National Council were ignored by Ban Ki-moon. He set definite time-frames for the completion of the talks and the holding of a multi-lateral conference and implicitly offered UN mediation – if not arbitration – to assist the sides to bridge their differences.
Christofias was extremely naive if he seriously thought that he would be able to secure Ban’s agreement for the indefinite continuation of the talks at Greentree. In fact, Ban’s frustration and loss of patience with the two sides was blatantly obvious in the statement he read out yesterday. The diplomatic wording could not conceal this frustration with Christofias and Eroglu, who had ignored his urging ‘to make decisive moves’ that would pave the way to a settlement.
He would no longer be directly involved in the procedure – there was no mention of any other meeting with the leaders – leaving everything in the hands of his Special Advisor Alexander Downer, who would decide if there was adequate progress by March to justify the calling of a multi-lateral conference in late April or early May.
As Ban stressed, it was down to the leaders to ‘make the decisive steps to move to a final agreement.’ In what was a clear dig at Christofias he said: ‘At this stage of the talks, to maintain the momentum and continue negotiations even in an intensive manner, is not enough.’
The only thing, Ban did not mention in yesterday’s statement is what would happen if Downer reports in March that the leaders did not make the decisive steps, the differences in the core issues remained and that a multi-lateral conference would be pointless. In statements made yesterday, the Turkish side took the view that the failure by Ban to call a multi-lateral conference by May would signal the end of the procedure.
This interpretation is not unjustified, given that Ban has repeatedly spoken about the ‘endgame’ while also informing Christofias and Eroglu, more recently, that ‘talks have entered the final phase’. Christofias remained oblivious to all these messages, assuring journalists, last night, that there was no time-frame for a multi-lateral conference.
But he conveniently failed to mention the time-frame for the end of the peace procedure.
