Now is the time

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that now it is time for both leaders in Cyprus "to be more seriously considering to make necessary compromises and show flexibility so they can move ahead". The UN S-G was replying to questions at his regular press briefing at UN headquarters yesterday.

He said: “I am reasonably optimistic about the prospect of resolving this long-standing Cyprus issue. I am encouraged by the commitment and continuing negotiations led by the two leaders, Mr. Christofias and Mr. Talat". He added that they have built up good political atmosphere on the basis of mutual trust and commitment and now it is time for them to make a real progress, demonstrating flexibility and arguing on compromises”.

Meanwhile, all the Turkish Cypriot newspapers report today about the visit to Ankara of the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mehmet Ali Talat, who had a two-hour meeting there with the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ahmet Davutoglu. According to the paper the property issue was discussed in the meeting.

Asked by a journalist whether a new opening is expected as regards Cyprus, Mr Talat said that the Cyprus opening has been continuing incessantly, since 2004. “We are the side which is active”, he stated. He also said that at his meeting with Davutoglu the delegations had worked on issues related to property and had discussed the governance issue. He added that the aim of the visit was not to determine new strategies but to continue the current pro-active approach.

Moreover the Cyprus Mail reports that while Talat was in Ankara and Christofias in Brussels for the European Council meeting, their aides met yesterday to prepare the ground for their meetings on Monday and Friday next week on property.

The paper says that the two aides have been charged with preparing a list of criteria involved in the property question as to what kinds of properties are affected and what potential solutions are available. Christofias and Talat have stated they are standing on opposite sides of the fence in terms of their positions on property solutions. While the Greek Cypriot side wants the original owner to have final say on what to do with the property, the Turkish Cypriots argue in favour of giving the current user more weight.

Turkey has suggested it plans to take steps very soon to speed up the talks and play an active role in solving the problem. On the other hand, Davutoglu has hinted that it cannot wait around for ever and if there is no solution by April, the date of the presidential elections in the north, then Turkey will start working on alternative solutions. The latter statement has been interpreted by the Greek Cypriot side as a veiled threat to pursue international recognition of the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ or some other action aimed at cementing the de facto partition.

In an interview with a Turkish newspaper, Talat described the election of Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou as a “significant advantage” to helping solve the Cyprus problem, noting that Papandreou was an important figure who had influence in the Greek Cypriot community. He also said he was less optimistic now than he was at the beginning of the process. “Time does not work in the other side’s favour,” he was quoted saying.

Moreover according to reports in the press, the UN has enlisted the help of an expert on property issue who arrived on the island and has been incorporated in Alexander Downing's team.

Britain's Guardian newspaper said today that Cyprus' President Christofias urged Europe to get tough with Turkey, likening the EU's concessions to Ankara to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. He also played down expectations of any breakthrough in the search for a settlement in Cyprus, saying that more than a year of negotiations with his Turkish Cypriot friend and counterpart, Mehmet Ali Talat, were in trouble. "Unfortunately, my expectations have not been justified," he said in an interview. "We have differences and divergences, deep, deep differences", he said and rejected talk of a deadline as artificial suggesting the Turkish side was exploiting Talat's electoral problems to blackmail him.

Christofias's gloomy remarks ran counter to diplomats' hopes that the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders represented the best chance for a settlement in a generation. If the talks fail, warned Hans Van Den Broek, the former Dutch foreign minister who sits on the Independent Commission on Turkey, "the island will certainly head towards partition. Tensions will rise in the eastern Mediterranean and EU-Turkey tension will deepen."

With much at stake in the Cyprus talks, Christofias laid a large part of the blame for the stalemate on the Turkish leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "We don't agree on anything with Mr Erdogan," he said.

The paper adds, however, that hopes for a solution to the Cyprus problem have been raised by the approach adopted by Greece's new prime minister, George Papandreou, who visited Turkey shortly after he was elected, where he met Erdogan. Christofias's negative comments reveal how difficult the task will be. "I don't compare Turkey with Nazi Germany," he said. "But it is not reasonable to say don't challenge Turkey because it will get angry. There are rules and unfortunately Turkey does not respect those rules ... This reminds me of the situation before the second world war, appeasing Hitler so he doesn't become more aggressive. The substance of fascism was the substance of fascism. Hitler was Hitler."