By Jean Christou
THE chief negotiators for both sides, Greek Cypriot Andreas Mavroyiannis and Turkish Cypriot Kudret Ozersay, met yesterday in the United Nations Protected Area of Nicosia at the Good Offices Mission.
According to a UN announcement they agreed to hold their next meeting on Monday.
The negotiators and their teams will meet respectively with the Good Offices tomorrow in order to prepare for their joint meeting on Monday.
According to reports, Mavroyianns and Ozersay, who will travel to Ankara and Athens respectively at the end of the month, are currently focusing on methodology.
It emerged yesterday that the Greek Cypriot team would be joined by lawyer Polys Polyviou – the independent investigator for the Mari blast – and former attorney-general Alecos Markides who was on the negotiating team formerly under Glafcos Clerides over a decade ago.
Polyviou, who was grilled on Radio Proto yesterday morning by a journalist from the 2004 ‘no camp’, managed to hold his ground. When quizzed over whether he was concerned about the negotiations going forward based on the controversial joint declaration that has the naysayers in a twist, said: “We should not just be concerned about what might happen, we should be just as concerned about what might not happen. If we continue to do nothing it will be a catastrophe”.
Earlier yesterday, President Nicos Anastasiades who kicked of negotiations with Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu on February 11, appealed to Greek Cypriot political forces for unity. “We need the strength of unity to overcome the problems that will be raised through the Turkish or Turkish Cypriot demands at the negotiating table,” he said.
The President was speaking at the presidential palace to teachers and children from the Kato Polemidia elementary school.
“I want to assure you that we will engage in the struggle to see our homeland free again, we will engage in the struggle to see human rights restored, we will engage in the struggle for the basic freedoms that will safeguard all our citizens and make sure that all citizens will enjoy the same things the rest of the European citizens are enjoying,” he said.
“If the 28 (member-states) of the European Union, with 28 different nationalities or origins, manage to cooperate, to build together and to create prospects, I wonder why two communities that lived peacefully together for years cannot manage to do the same, with mutual respect for each other’s ethnic origin. Ethnic origin was not and must not be the problem. It is human rights that must bring us close together by safeguarding them.”
News from the Turkish side yesterday had Eroglu saying the return of Varosha was not on the agenda, and that Turkey as a guarantor power said it was a red line for the Turkish Cypriots.
“There is not yet any issue on our agenda such as handing over Maras (Varosha). When negotiations come to a stage of ‘give-and-take,’ we will surely discuss everything and we will discuss it with the people,” Eroglu said.
Turkish Cypriot ‘foreign minister’ Ozdil Nami was quoted yesterday as telling the European Union Socialist Group meeting in Brussels that he believed the historic nature of the joint statement paved the way for rapid progress at the negotiating table by addressing some of the critical issues related to governance and power sharing in a federal Cyprus.
“Today on both sides of the island there is a sense of increased optimism due to this long awaited progress. There is also a sense of confidence that this time we will be able to resolve the issue,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Turkish ambassador to Athens Kerim Uras, in an interview with Anadolou news agency said the start of talks was the result of a long-term plan by Ankara. “The key to solving the Cyprus problem is natural resources and the key to the candidacy of Turkey to the EU is the solution of the Cyprus problem,” he said. Uras said that Greek Cypriots who lost their property in the north would be compensated through profits from the exploitation of the island’s natural gas reserves.
