Christofias concerned at lack of progress

President Christofias on Monday said that “unfortunately, despite our intensive efforts, after four months of work, I do not have real progress to report”.

Speaking just before he was due to meet Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat for their second meeting this year, where discussions on governance were due to continue, he said a number of secondary issues had been agreed but there remain significant differences of approach to the issue of the powers and functions of the central government, the system of governance as well as foreign relations.

He complained that the Turkish side is seeking to weaken the powers of the proposed central government as much as possible by endowing the federated units with functions and powers usually reserved for federal governments, giving rise to suspicions that they are aiming for an entity approaching confederation rather than federation, as prescribed in relevant UN Security Council resolutions on Cyprus. He added that the UN process envisioned the evolution of the Cypriot state into a federation, and if we are to have any chance of an agreement this year, the Turkish side must negotiate within this framework.The Cyprus Mail says that the President’s comments mirror information leaked to Anatolia News Agency last month, which claimed the Turkish Cypriot side was seeking as much autonomy as it could get in a federal solution. One such demand was for separate Flight Information Regions (FIR), which the Greek Cypriot side argue is tantamount to asking for two separate states. Another comes under the topic of international agreements made by the federal state. The Turkish Cypriot side wants a footnote to be included which says that the two constituent states can also make international agreements within their own spheres of authority. They also argue that the constituent states should be able to “implement federal government’s laws unilaterally in “appropriate situations”. But the Greek Cypriot side says it should be the federal government which decides whether its laws should be implemented by the constituent states.

The two leaders spent 30 minutes alone before negotiations got under way with UN Special Advisor Alexander Downer. Downer said afterwards the discussions then focused on relations between a federal government and the constituent states.“There was quite a long discussion about that,” he said.Downer said there had also been a renewal of a discussion that had been held sometime earlier on deadlock resolving mechanisms. “These discussions will continue again on Friday morning,” he added. “That will be the last discussion for the time being between the leaders on governance and power sharing and then in all probability at their next meeting they will work out the date for next meeting.” Downer said that meeting would see the start of discussions on the property question.

The Cyprus Mail in a recent editorial referred to Christofias’ pessimistic appraisal of the negotiations saying it gave the opportunity to opponents of the process to criticise the UN for giving out misleading information and to claim that the process was doomed to failure, just as they had been predicting all along.

The paper wonders why he felt obliged to make his feelings public, considering there is still a long way to go and important topics have yet to be touched. It is too early to prepare people for a collapse of the talks, considering he has no intention of walking out when most topics have not even been discussed. Is he trying to put pressure on the UN and the international community to turn the screws on the Turkish side? This also seems implausible as pressure could only be applied when the discussions are completed and the two leaders enter the give-and-take phase. For now, the two sides are merely stating their respective positions, between which there was bound to be some distance. Another explanation is that by slamming Talat’s demands and lamenting the gulf separating the two sides’ respective positions, he is depriving the hard-line camp of ammunition to fire at him. Had he said that most topics relating to governance were agreed, he would have come under a barrage of criticism and accused of making too many concessions because for the hardliners, the negotiations will always be a zero sum game. They always perceive agreement on an issue as a sell-out, because they work on the assumption that what the Turkish Cypriots accept must, by definition, be bad for the Greek Cypriots.

Christofias, therefore, not only has to complain about the lack of progress, but must also accuse Talat of making demands that were outside the UN framework. But would a weak federal government which Talat, reportedly, has been demanding, really be outside the UN framework? If the two sides agreed to this, would the UN mediators object to it? By being specific he may be looking to reassure the hardliners about his tough stance.

While this tactic may serve him well for now, there is the danger that it would eventually turn everyone against a compromise. If he carries on slamming Talat and his demands, there would be nobody left supporting a settlement, long before the procedure is concluded.