U.S. STATE Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Mathew Bryza ended the fourth day of his visit to Cyprus yesterday by saying the US would do all it could to facilitate a bi-zonal, bicommunal, federal solution to the island’s decades-old divide.
He warned however of a “deep sense of differences on the core issues” between the Turkish and Greek Cypriot sides. “I wind up my stay, not naively optimistic, but not coldly pessimistic,” he concluded.
His warning came despite an agreement made earlier this month between the leaders of the two communities to restart negotiations on a settlement.
Speaking to the press after meetings yesterday with Turkish Cypriot political leaders in the north, Bryza described the prospects for a solution in the coming round of negotiations as “real but perishable”.
The US official’s visit caused controversy when Cypriot president Tassos Papadopoulos refused to meet him, a move thought at first to have arisen from Bryza’s insistence that he would meet Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat at his ‘palace’ in north Nicosia. It was later said, however, that Papadopoulos’ refusal stemmed rather from normal diplomatic protocol that would make it inappropriate for him to meet a diplomatic official.
Whatever the reason for Papadopoulos’ reticence, a softening of the government’s stance was in evidence yesterday when it was announced that Bryza would be extending his visit for an extra day to meet Foreign Minister George Lilikas, who has been in Brussels for the duration of Bryza’s visit. Their meeting will take place today.
Yesterday Bryza told the media that his visit to Cyprus amounted to no more than a fact-finding mission, and that he had not come to the island with concrete proposals designed to add impetus to the search for a solution.
He also rejected the idea that the visit was intended to head off a clash between Cyprus, Turkey and the EU over Turkey’s refusal to open its ports and airports to Greek Cypriot ships and planes.
“Turkey’s accession to the EU depends on it fulfilment of accession criteria,” he said, adding that Nicosia was, in fact, “no obstacle” to Turkish accession to the bloc.
The visit, he said, was “a chance to acquaint myself with all the views of the people on Cyprus [by] meeting as many people, as many perspectives as possible”.
Asked by journalists if inferences it had made in the past regarding the lifting of economic and political restrictions on the Turkish Cypriot community, Bryza said such measures would only materialise “in the context of finding a solution”. He did add, however, that it was “easier to reunite if the economic disparities are limited”.
Bryza was keen yesterday to show that bridges, damaged by the Greek Cypriot rejection of the Annan plan, were all but repaired. When asked if the US had “buried the hatchet” regarding Nicosia, he said, “There is no hatchet. I am astounded when people say we’ve done anything other than try and unite the island in a bi-zonal, bicommunal federation”.
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