UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday urged the leaders in no uncertain terms to pick up the pace in the Cyprus peace process which, he said has lost momentum.
“The peace talks on Cyprus were losing momentum and needed a boost. That is why I invited the leaders here. Only the leaders can give the talks a boost,” Ban said in a brief statement following a three-way meeting with President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu at the UN headquarters in New York.
The UN chief said so far the talks were “without clear progress or a clear end in sight,” but added that the message of urgency was driven home to both sides.
“I believe the leaders understand this. I hope today’s meeting has helped restore momentum,” he said.
Noting that serious differences remained between the two sides, the UN chief said the leaders agreed to intensify their contacts in the coming weeks, and that the three would meet again in Geneva in late January.
By that time, Ban said, he hoped Christofias and Eroglu would identify the “main points of disagreement.”
Neither Ban nor the two leaders took questions afterward, the Secretary-General explaining that this was due to “the sensitive nature of the discussions.”
However, Ban did describe the talks as “constructive” and said they revolved around the issues of governance, power-sharing, the economy, property and security.
Returning to the sense of urgency he aimed to inject into the process, Ban said he wanted the two sides to “assume their responsibilities” and not to engage in “endless talks.”
Nevertheless, he expressed confidence in the leaders’ commitment to work out a solution to the 35-year-long division of the island.
The talks had been preceded by a working lunch hosted by Ban for the two leaders. The talks proper got underway at 10pm and wrapped up shortly after midnight, Cyprus time.
Christofias, Ban and Eroglu took time to join hands in a three-way handshake during a photo-up minutes before getting down to business. The smiles were gone by the time they emerged from the meeting.
Expectations for any tangible developments had been running low even before yesterday’s meeting. Prior to flying off to New York Christofias pledged he was not going to make concessions, while Eroglu was quoted in the Turkish Cypriot press saying that the two leaders had reached “deadlock” on the property issue.
Attending the meeting, in addition to the leaders, were George Iacovou, Eroglu’s advisor Kudret Özersay, Downer and the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe.
Christofias’ party to New York also included expert on constitutional law Toumazos Tselepis.
Before the meal, Eroglu was quoted by Anadolu news agency saying he expected the Secretary-General to ask the leaders for their thoughts on how to break the deadlock on some of the negotiating chapters.
Asked whether he was optimistic, the Turkish Cypriot leader offered the perfunctory answer: “Certainly, every meeting provides hope, and that is we are coming to this meeting with good will.”
Reports said UN Special Adviser Alexander Downer, also in New York for the meeting, will today have a follow-up meeting there with Christofias and Eroglu. Downer and the two leaders are also set to meet again back in Cyprus next week.
According to the CyBC’s New York correspondent, the agenda of yesterday’s meeting was fixed only at the eleventh hour, despite Downer having told newsmen on Wednesday the meet held no surprises in store and that the two leaders would be “happy” with the format.
The two leaders were called to the Big Apple based on the UN’s assessment that talks on the property issue need a push forward if any progress is to be made in the negotiations which, as Downer put it earlier, had “lost momentum.”
The meeting came days before Ban is due to submit to the Security Council a progress report on the talks and whose conclusions both sides are eagerly awaiting.
Ban said yesterday his report would be “fair and frank”.
Reports from New York said suggested the Secretary-General was considering another progress review in February of 2011.
Though the UN has said no deadline for a settlement exists, it has stressed too that the talks cannot be allowed to drag on forever.
Meanwhile it emerged yesterday that Archbishop Chrysostomos had sent the UN chief a letter calling on Ban to “uphold the principles of the international organisation” and warning that the people of Cyprus would never agree to “a watering down of UN principles” which, if it did happen, would be an “oxymoron.”
In the letter, dated November 13, the Archbishop included a loaded reference to the UN-sanctioned war on Iraq, noting: “If the organisation which you lead allowed a war against a country which invaded another, is it too much for us to ask that our rights, which were likewise violated, be restored?”
And yesterday Turkey’s chief EU negotiator Egemen Bagis told the “Irish Times” yesterday that his country would never “abandon” Cyprus for the sake of the European Union or vice versa.
The EU needs Turkey, Bagis said, adding that certain European countries are adopting double standards and using Cyprus as a pretext to hide the real reasons behind their opposition to Turkey joining the bloc.
Meanwhile, during a new talk show broadcast on the Al Jazeera English channel Wednesday, former British Special Representative for Cyprus David Hannay said Greek and Turkish Cypriots and the international community were equally to blame for the failure to find a settlement over the past 36 years.
“I do think that the best way to proceed is by adjusting parts of that plan [the Annan plan] that were unacceptable” to the sides, Hannay said.
“I think it’s time for a little bit of new thinking on the part of the Greek Cypriots,” he noted, adding that the Greek Cypriots’ blocking of trade with the north was not a constructive move.
Also taking part in that discussion were Ahmet Sozen, director of the Cyprus Policy Center, a think-tank affiliated with Eastern Mediterranean University in Famagusta, and Andreas Theophanous, professor of Political Economy at the University of Nicosia.
