By a Staff Reporter
A CYPRUS settlement can never be based on the idea of two states on the island, Lord David Hannay, Britain’s former Special Envoy for Cyprus said yesterday, expressing the hope that the island’s political leadership would realise the advantages of a solution and return to the negotiating table.
In an interview with the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) after his resignation from the Cyprus post last week, Hannay said the parties involved in the Cyprus problem needed to realise that general statements expressing willingness to continue negotiations were “not enough” to persuade UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan to reengage in the peace effort.
Hannay said it was Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash’s insistence on a two-state solution that had frustrated the UN effort and brought the latest search for a solution to deadlock in The Hague in March.
“Denktash to the very end was saying he did not want to live in the same house as the Greek Cypriots, he wanted a second house, he wanted two houses and a little corridor between the two houses which he could control,” he told CNA.
Hannay said he did not believe a settlement was possible on the basis wanted by Denktash and stressed a solution based on two states was simply not on the cards.
“I do not think it ever has been and I do not see any circumstances in which it ever will be. One has to look towards a reunited Cyprus, albeit one in which the two people will run their own day-to-day affairs for everything like health, education and police and transport, each on their own without interference from the other, but they will do certain things in common.
“This is what the Annan plan provided, a common house in which the two Cypriot people could live in security and increasing prosperity within the EU, but at the same time recognising there are a lot of things they would do separately and they would not interfere with each other in the way they did in the previous Cyprus established in 1960.”
He agreed with Annan that the current circumstances provided insufficient grounds for a new UN initiative. “Unfortunately, so far there has not been much of a response on the specifics of what the Secretary-general has said, although there have been some general statements of willingness to continue the negotiations. It is necessary for all concerned to grasp that that will not be enough, it will not persuade the Secretary-general to reengage with a reasonable certainty that reengagement will lead to a positive outcome.”
Nevertheless, he remained optimistic that there was still time for peace talks so that a reunited Cyprus could join the EU bloc in May 2004, warning the status quo was unstable and unsatisfactory, and that there were “real risks and dangers in the assumption that things can go on as they are”.
“In reality they are not going on as they are. The opening up of the Green Line has indeed begun to change things. Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots can get on together. The idea that the status quo is something everyone can rely on has been shown to be not very solid; one has to go on very firmly to get a settlement but just now prospects are not terribly brilliant,” he told the news agency.
Hannay stepped down as Britain’s special envoy last Wednesday and the British government decided not to replace him in the light of the current deadlock.
Hannay admitted that, “at the moment, there is not a big contribution one can make”. He said he believed he had made a “bit of a contribution”, but a comeback on Cyprus was not on the cards for him.
“I think it would be unwise to work on that assumption,” he said.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
