Jean Christou
THE TURKISH side’s agreement to attend indirect talks on Cyprus will not be enough to lift Greece’s embargo on Turkey’s EU candidacy, Athens said yesterday.
Greek officials told the Reuters news agency that only substantial progress on the Cyprus issue would qualify as a “concrete gesture” on the basis of which Greece could lift its objections at the EU Helsinki summit on December 6.
“It’s too early to start applauding,” one senior Greek official said, referring to Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash’s agreement to attend indirect talks on Cyprus in New York on December 3, just three days before the European summit.
Athens believes there will be little time for real progress in that time and reports out of Ankara already suggest that Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit is not ready to make any concessions on Cyprus.
Local reports quoted Ecevit as saying that, despite improved relations with Greece, Ankara was not ready to give ground on Cyprus.
Denktash only agreed to go to New York after the UN changed the text of a statement on the talks twice in 24 hours, during which he said he would go, then he wouldn’t, and finally agreed on Monday morning.
He objected to UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan’s reference to “President” Clerides and “Mr” Denktash, and also to the fact that Annan spoke of “substantive” talks.
The wording of the third and final statement just said that “the parties have agreed to start proximity talks in New York on December 3 to prepare the ground for meaningful negotiations leading to a comprehensive settlement.”
Turkish Cypriot papers yesterday quoted Denktash as saying he hoped an agreement for a confederation would be reached at the end of the proximity talks.
He told the Cyprus Mail last week he regarded the talks as a means to establish his status before any direct negotiations could start.
“Are we supposed to be grateful to Mr Denktash for participating in the talks? This is the minimum he can do,” Greek government spokesman Demetris Reppas said in Athens yesterday. “What matters is the progress that will be made.”
Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis is due to meet Ecevit on the sidelines of the OSCE summit in Istanbul this week.
The US and other members of the international community are touting Sunday’s agreement as a major breakthrough in the Cyprus issue, although no one is saying what will be on the agenda in New York. President Clerides has said he has been assured the talks will be substantive.
Britain’s envoy Sir David Hannay said on Monday it was not a question of asking Turkey to make concessions, but of finding a settlement that protects the interests of all concerned.
“I think Turkey is very conscious of the need to look at the whole of its relations with the West, with the United States, with the European Union, and in that relationship obviously the unsolved problem of Cyprus is still a bit of a poisoned thorn,” Hannay told the BBC.
“My own view is that perseverance and persistent diplomacy will eventually bear fruit, but you have to be very patient and you have to not take ‘No’ for an answer and you have to no yield to the cynical thoughts, the shrug of the shoulders, ‘just another attempt’ ‘What’s the point?’ The point is to avoid something becoming a serious threat to international peace and security which some time ago actually led to open fighting.”
Meanwhile Russia’s Chargé d’affaires in Nicosia, Sergei Rokov, said Moscow would be raising the issue of the UN talks text with the Security Council.
Rokov was responding to questions on the absence of any reference to UN resolutions in the brief text issued on Sunday.
