UN SECRETARY General Ban Ki-moon must be one of the world’s greatest optimists. He issues report after report on Cyprus, sometimes taking a softly, softly approach and other times issuing veiled warnings, but his reports are always hopeful because each time he meets the two leaders, they assure him they want a solution and agree to intensify the negotiations.
It’s been three years as far as the latest round is concerned and the new intensified negotiations lasted only a day and a half before going on hiatus.
But Ban’s new draft report, following his meeting with the leaders in July and prior to his upcoming meeting with them in October, is just more of the same. The talks are still going too slowly, time is running out, the leaders want a solution and they can reach it if they try.
What the report fails to mention are the new realities on the ground – to use a UN expression.
The Turkish side wants an agreement by the end of the year or they will go their own way. That might not be just a soundbite any more. The change in stance of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, which was evident during his visit to the north last month, does not bode well.
He talked about never returning Morphou or the Karpas and even hinted that he was not disposed to discussing Varosha either. He also threatened to freeze Turkey’s accession talks with the EU if Cyprus takes over the EU presidency in the second half of 2012. The Turkish Cypriot side is also facing its own domestic issues, not least Ankara’s unpopular austerity measures.
On the Greek Cypriot side, President Demetris Christofias is facing an unprecedented crisis of confidence and the worst economic crisis since 1974. His coalition partner has abandoned him citing disagreement on the Cyprus issue, leaving him completely isolated in the negotiations.
This automatically puts him in the position of being totally unable to sell a solution to the political parties, and perhaps even at this stage to a sceptical populace.
In the face of all this, Ban Ki-moon’s pleas to the leaders to get on with it seem somewhat moot, and his comment that there is not likely to be a Cyprus agreement “for quite some time”, smacks of understatement.
If the leaders could not their act together during three years of relative peace and quiet, the chances of converging views by this October are slim to nil.
And that’s all beside the fact that when the two leaders tell the UNSG they want a solution – and no one doubts that they do – they just mean different solutions.
