THE middle of next year will be make or break time for the Cyprus problem, but optimism is higher than it has ever been, diplomats on the island have told the Sunday Mail.
For once the new optimism among the international community appears to have rubbed off on the leadership of both communities. Unprecedented statements of hope and talks of progress have issued from both sides since the latest round of UN-led proximity talks ended in New York last month.
On Wednesday Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides said the Greek Cypriot side expected talks to wind up one way or the other by the middle of next year.
His assessment of a 50-50 chance for a solution, however, leaned more towards the positive rather than the negative, when he said talks this summer had become substantive and yielded more hope than ever before.
The latest round got off to a shaky start after UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan spoke about the equal status of the parties, prompting President Glafcos Clerides to boycott the first two days of talks but pleasing Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash. Annan later clarified that the equal status he spoke of was part of a comprehensive settlement and in line with UN resolutions.
“Denktash was pretty gleeful over Annan’s statement,” one diplomatic source told the Sunday Mail. “Clerides is now content because he has his clarification and Denktash is content because of the language contained within it, which is open to interpretation. It was in fact a very clever piece of drafting by the secretary-general.”
The source said the Greek Cypriot side has now realised the statement was made in order to make progress in the talks by putting the status issue to one side, since this was one of the major obstacles to Denktash’s willingness to negotiate.
“He (Annan) was after a statement which literally said ‘let’s get on with the talking, nothing is going to be agreed until everything is agreed’, and this put the status issue out of the way,” the source said.
He added that the international community was very confident with the way UN envoy Alvaro de Soto is going about the negotiations.
“He has shown himself to be a very gifted mediator and is going about things the right way,” the source said.
“And for the statements by Mr Cassoulides… that’s the most positive thing we’ve heard from the Greek Cypriot side in a long while. It’s not going to be overnight, but things are moving in the right direction.”
A second western diplomat agreed that there was a genuine feeling that both sides were getting down to business.
“I have a feeling by middle of next year we are going to be arriving at an interesting place,” the diplomat said. He said there were some very strong forces keeping both sides at the table. “For the Greek Cypriots it’s EU accession and they want to keep their noses clean, and the Turkish Cypriots are being told quite firmly by Turkey that they are not to walk out as long as the UN is producing reasonable suggestions.”
A third diplomatic source said there seems to be a higher level of trust in the UN from the Turkish Cypriot side
“Because nothing is agreed until everything is agreed they can afford to tackle bits of the problem at different times, because you’re not ticking things off on a check list, which is one of the advantages to this approach instead of banging your head against a brick wall on one particular issue,” the source said.
“The fact that the four core issues are interrelated means as you make progress on one you are likely to make progress on another. I believe the current optimism is justified.”
Government sources told the Sunday Mail there seemed to be a shift in the attitude of the Turkish Cypriot leader, which has contributed to the new hopes for progress.
“It was the fact that Mr Denktash agreed to engage in negotiations for the first time without satisfaction of his preconditions such as recognition,” the sources said. “I think that was a positive step forward. The language he was using during the New York talks was mildly different from his usual language. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe Turkey made some suggestions to him or maybe he just has some other reasons.
“The fact is he started talking business on all core issues without satisfaction of his preconditions.”
The sources said what Annan had done in New York was to find a formula without giving anything to Denktash to satisfy his precondition for recognition.
“In a way it was a face-saving exercise for Denktash, but Annan was crystal clear in his explanations to the President,” the sources said.
The government sources said they could not confirm whether or not the Greek Cypriot side is in a strong position at the moment. “We have never been in a strong position since 1974, but I believe that we have a real possibility to negotiate a good settlement,” they said. “We pray for progress but we can’t say we expect it.”
