U.S. Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried yesterday went to great pains to convince that Washington would be supporting, and not interfering in a new Cyprus process.
Fried, who was on a short visit and met both leaders in the morning, began at least half a dozen sentences with the words “It’s not the place of the US to…” during a news conference before he left the island.
Mediators on Cyprus have learned since the Annan plan fiasco not to be seen to be interfering or imposing a Cyprus solution and have been careful during the current process to keep a “supportive distance”.
“There is no American plan,” said Fried. “We want to help but this is not an issue on which a settlement can be imposed from the outside.
Fried said it was for the leaders to show the way forward. “And we look forward to supporting them. There has been progress, not just good statements but the opening of the Ledra Street crossing, which I saw yesterday, is a tangible expression of the leaders’ verbal commitment and written commitment to progress.
“It is a sign that progress is possible, so we applaud the efforts of the leaders of Cyprus to reunite this island,” said Fried.
“The time has not been so favourable in many years for a settlement. We pledge ourselves to help as we may, working with the UN.”
President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat are due to meet on July 25 where it is expected that a date for new Cyprus negotiations in September will be announced.
Fried said he could not shed any light on a date for talks, saying it was up to the leaders, with whom he had productive and useful meeting with yesterday, he said.
“I was able to listen, to hear the concerns of both sides but also to hear the commitment of both sides to make progress. We hope that the leaders of this island will be able to make progress and open full-fledged negotiations soon,” Fried said.
“Time will not improve things so I hope things can move forward and we can see negotiations and progress towards a settlement as soon as possible,” he added.
Asked to comment on the likely appointment of Australian former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, an unequivocal supporter of the current US administration, as the UN’s special envoy for Cyprus, Fried said the decision was the UN’s to make.
“We think, at the right time, it makes a great deal of sense and we will look for ways to support the process,” he added.
As for the appointment of a new US envoy for Cyprus, Fried said Washington wanted to do something when it made sense to do so.
But he did say that when he returned to the US his “bottom line assessment” to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would be “that we need to get ready” because there was a real chance, “not a certainty”, that the process would be moving forward in a way not seen in Cyprus for some time.
Fried was also asked to comment on reports late last year that he allegedly admitted that the US administration handed Cyprus to Turkey, through the Annan Plan, as a reward for the latter’s provision of facilities to the United States for the war in Iraq. The story caused a stir among some factions of the Greek Cypriot press.
In his first direct comment on the reports, Fried said yesterday: “That was the silliest press story I have encountered in years. I never said it, I never thought it. That is a ridiculous thought. There is no truth to that, happily.”
