TOP Turkish leaders left for the US yesterday for meetings with President George Bush and UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan where the next steps on Cyprus will be discussed.
At the same time, UN Undersecretary for Political Affairs Sir Kieran Prendergast completed his visit to the region yesterday when he met Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul in Ankara.
Prendergast, who visited the region to take the pulse of the sides involved, was in Cyprus last week and Athens over the weekend but he did not give any indication on the state of play regarding a resumption of talks.
The UN official will now report back to Annan, who will ultimately decide if he will invite the two sides back to the table.
Statements by President Tassos Papadopoulos on Sunday suggested it was too early and conditions too uncertain to begin talking about a new round of negotiations, while Turkey appears keen to have some movement on the issue before its EU accession talks are due to begin on October 3.
Speculation has been rife over the weekend as to what the UN will do next. Reports yesterday said Prendergast would not only be reporting to Annan but also to the UN Security Council.
According to reports, the ambassadors of the five permanent members of the Security Council in Nicosia had suggested to Prendergast that a study be carried out into economies of both sides, as this had been a major issue in the rejected Annan plan.
The suggestion was that the UN team that worked on the Annan plan had not given the issue enough attention, considering it played a significant part in the Greek Cypriot rejection of the plan during the April 2004 referendum.
But diplomats were baffled yesterday by the news that any such report by the Security Council was in the offing. A representative of one of the ‘Big Five’ said they had no knowledge of such a thing.
A second diplomatic source said they had not heard of it either. “We know there was some suggestion that there was insufficient attention given to this in the Annan plan and that the issue was used by the ‘no’ campaign,” said the source. “However, we have heard nothing new in relation to this.”
Other sources said the suggestion was an attempt to keep the Cyprus problem afloat as the outlook for a speedy resumption of talks was bleak.
Even Prendergast said last week he was neither optimistic nor pessimistic, only “realistic”.
Asked yesterday about his meeting with Prendergast, Gul said: “We will meet the UN Secretary-general Annan in New York. Prendergast will submit a report to Annan about the situation and possible solution of the Cyprus question; what the parties think; and what could be done.”
Speaking later before departing for the US, Gul said Turkey knew what it was doing about Cyprus.
“If the previous governments (in Turkey) had pursued the policy which our government is pursuing on Cyprus, today the Greek Cypriot side wouldn’t have been a member of the EU and Turkish Cypriots would have been in a very different position,” he said.
Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides said yesterday now was the time for Turkey to clarify its stance on Cyprus and indicate its readiness for real changes to the Annan plan. He said Turkey should clarify whether its aim was to bring back the Annan plan as it stood.
Papadopoulos said on Sunday: “Our hope is for Turkey to realise that the pending situation as regards Cyprus does not serve anyone nor its own interests, the Turkish Cypriots or the Greek Cypriots.”
He said the Turkish side should recognise that it had secured more with the Annan plan than it had a right to, and more than it needed.
“They have to accept substantive changes in order to be able to begin a new procedure,” he said.
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