WHEN THE news that the UN Secretary-General was to visit Cyprus were announced we expressed the hope that his presence would give a fresh impetus to the talks which had been moving at a snail’s pace. Perhaps he would persuade the two leaders to show a greater sense of urgency in the talk or help them bridge the outstanding differences in the governance and power-sharing chapter, which has taken up 16 months of negotiations and remains open.
From what was said yesterday by Ban Ki-moon and the leaders’ joint communiquι it appears that very little was achieved by the visit. There was no commitment to speed up the negotiation process – it is not even clear that the leaders would continue the intensive talks – and the only thing said about the talks so far was that “important progress” was achieved. It would appear that the skeptics, who had argued that Ban’s visit had little meaning, were correct.
We do not know what was discussed during Ban’s meetings with the two leaders, but if something positive was agreed surely it would have been announced. We can only deduce that no agreement was reached on the continuation of the intensive talks. Perhaps Mehmet Ali Talat wanted to concentrate on his re-election campaign or perhaps President Christofias wanted to revert to the one meeting per week format.
The Secretary-General, diplomatically, mentioned what was lacking in the peace process when he said “Cyprus needs commitment, vision and flexibility” and he politely pointed out that the two leaders would need to show “even more courage and determination to bring these talks to a successful conclusion”. The UN was not prepared to wait indefinitely for this conclusion as “now is the time for the Cyprus solution”.
Despite the effort to be positive there was a sense of frustration, presumably because his visit had not achieved very much. This could explain why he made a point of reminding the two leaders, in his brief statement, that the responsibility for reaching an agreement was exclusively theirs. “But this is a process that is by the people of Cyprus, and for the people of Cyprus… the future of Cyprus is in your hands.” The message was clear – if Talat and Christofias failed to deliver the desired solution, they would only have themselves to blame.
It was a pity that the visit could not be spared the obligatory grandstanding by the political parties which are opposed to the peace process. The four parties expressed outrage because Ban had visited Talat at his ‘presidential office’ and in protest boycotted last evening’s reception at the Ledra Palace Hotel. It was an unnecessary show of bad faith which challenged Ban’s assertion that “now is the time for the Cyprus solution”.
