Issue No. 13376

 

UN SECRETARY-GENERAL Ban Ki-moon’s visit to Cyprus this week marked neither the end of Cyprus’ reunification talks nor the beginning of the end, but perhaps the end of the beginning.

 

And because the beginning leaves little room for optimism, the secretary-general personally launched, in effect, the massive international pressure on Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias to find a solution.

 

Christofias and leaders of Greek-Cypriot parties were up in arms over Ban’s decision to meet on February 1 with Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat at his so-called presidential office. 

 

Ban thus became the first UN chief to offer indirect recognition of the breakaway state in Turkish-occupied Cyprus. Christofias reportedly lodged a strong verbal complaint with Ban.

 

Still, Cypriot government spokesman Stephanos Stephanou the next day put a positive face on the visit, saying it gave a push to the lagging talks. Stephanou claimed that Ban was duped and that the Turkish-Cypriots ushered him without his knowing into Talat’s “presidential mansion” and not the Turkish-Cypriot leader’s residence as was agreed. 

 

 

The severe diplomatic backlash led Ban’s special adviser in the Cyprus talks, Alexander Downer, to read a statement. “The secretary-general has met with Mr Talat in his capacity of the leader of the Turkish-Cypriot community, in the context of the negotiations for a solution of the Cyprus problem. The venue of the meeting has no political significance,” Downer said. 

 

That convinced no one on the Greek-Cypriot side, and four parties - socialist EDEK and centrist DIKO, who are part of the governing coalition, as well as the European Party and the Ecologists - boycotted a reception for Ban. 

 

If Ban’s visit to Cyprus was intended to boost Talat’s hopes of winning re-election in April - as many Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot media suggested - the visit to Talat’s offices may well have been intended as a campaign gift. Talat is trailing Dervis Eroglu, who openly calls for the partitioning of Cyprus into two separate states. 

 

Greek-Cypriot politicians stressed that the UN cannot help Talat at the expense of the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus and the UN’s own resolutions. 

 

 

Socialist EDEK leader Yannakis Omirou declared that Ban’s move was an “unprecedented deviation” that trampled on the UN Security Council’s own resolutions. He cited UN Security Council Resolutions 541 and 550, which urge member states not to recognise directly or indirectly the breakaway state. The only concrete outcome of the Ban visit was that the two sides promised to keep negotiating until mid-April. 

 

Before Ban’s visit, Christofias steadfastly refused the idea of an interim agreement that would enshrine Greek-Cypriot concessions, such as a rotating presidency.

 

He agreed, instead to issuing a joint statement with Talat, which Ban read out on February 1. It declared that “important progress” had been made. 

 

Most importantly for the Greek-Cypriot side, the statement stressed that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”. 

 

 

ATHENS NEWS 30/08/2010, page: 10