FOREIGN Minister George Iacovou said yesterday that the UN and the Cyprus government have agreed that demilitarisation and the resolution of the closed-off ghost city of Varosha should be among the confidence-building measures promoted by technical committees between the two communities to re-launch negotiations.
The surprise news came after Secretary-general Kofi Annan met with President Papadopoulos in Paris on Tuesday in an effort to kick-start talks between the two communities.
But the Turkish Cypriot leadership has asked the UN for clarification since it does not consider demilitarisation and the return of Varosha to be a “soft” confidence-building measure but rather major issues that should be addressed in the solution.
UN Under-Secretary-general for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari visited Washington on February 27 and 28 to meet with State Department officials who deal with the Cyprus issue.
Gambari said that there is a “Turkish initiative on the table” and therefore Secretary General Kofi Annan met with Papadopoulos in to an effort to “keep momentum”.
“He has asked me to come to Washington and talk to senior officials here as to what can we do jointly to put pressure on the parties to move towards a negotiated peace,” Gambari said.
When asked what Annan would do if Papadopoulos again rejected the plan, Gambari said that the purpose of the Paris meeting between Annan and Papadopoulos was precisely to lay the ground for an acceptable solution.
Gambari also met with US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Mathew Bryza, who plans to visit Cyprus.
The European Commission has welcomed the meeting between Annan and Papadopoulos, calling the effort to launch talks on a technical level “encouraging”.
UN spokesman St?phane Dujarric said after the meeting that the Secretary-general was “pleased to note that the leaders of both communities have agreed that bi-communal discussions on a series of issues, agreement on which are needed for the benefit of all Cypriots, will be undertaken at the technical level.
“The Secretary-general and Mr Papadopoulos also agreed that it would be beneficial for all concerned, and would greatly improve the atmosphere for further talks, if progress could be achieved on further disengagement of forces and demilitarisation on the island, on the complete de-mining of Cyprus, and on the issue of Famagusta.”
In response to a question on whether the meeting was a step forward on launching talks, Annan said that he would like to see a “much narrower gap between our words and our actions”.
Foreign Minister George Iacovou said that among the issues discussed was the number of settlers, property, the reestablishment of people from one area to another, demilitarisation, and the complete demining of the island, something that he said could be decided upon immediately with Turkish Cypriot agreement, although implementation would take time.
Iacovou emphasised that resolving the issue of the ghost city Varosha was of primary importance for the resumption of talks, referring to it as a distinctly separate matter that should be a precondition to any solution. “The Secretary-general himself has said in all the reports that it [Varosha] is the responsibility of Turkey.”
“There were the 1979 agreements where the priority of Famagusta was voted, and there were the Security Council votes 550, 589 and others.”
Iacovou said that UN Secretary-general’s new Special Representative in Cyprus Michael Moller would be visiting Athens and Ankara soon, and that Moller would be present at the technical meetings between the two communities.
DISY leader Nicos Anastassiades criticised the government, claiming that a slower policy of rapprochement entailed by the confidence-building measures would only delay the resolution to the problem, thereby further cementing partition.
In response, undersecretary to the President Christodoulos Pashardis accused the DISY leadership of electioneering and said that the Paris meeting was a “source of concern and distress” to the opposition, which he said “does not have a monopoly” over the Cyprus Problem.
Ruling DIKO acting chairman Nikos Cleanthous also took aim at Anastassiades. After calling on the DISY leadership to stand by the President “in a spirit of national unity to bring the strongest possible results,” Cleanthous then proceeded to lay into him, saying that the DISY leadership “unfortunately did not rise to the occasion”.
Cleanthous said that the “only logical explanation” for DISY’s criticism of the government in the wake of the Annan meeting was “either that they want our side to be sent again to an unnecessary procedure with immeasurable catastrophic results” or that they have “never stopped being in love with this position [the Annan Plan], in other words that we should have accepted the Annan Plan and there was no other way out.
“And maybe they are upset that this way out has been found so we may find a proper solution to the Cyprus problem that will be embraced by those who voted ‘yes’ and by those who voted ‘no’.”
