Four more meetings yet Christofias insists he's not stalling

Four more meetings between Messers Christofias and Talat will be held in the framework of the direct negotiations on the Cyprus problem. They will be held on 24 February, 4 March, 16 March and 30 March, it was announced yesterday.

Announcing the dates, Government Spokesman, Stefanos Stefanou said the government expected “the Turkish Cypriot side to proceed to the negotiations in a constructive way, as our side always does, to be able to find more convergences and to move the process forward with a view to achieve a settlement of the Cyprus problem.”

He added that if the Turkish Cypriot side remains consistent with the previously agreed basis of the negotiations and tables positions compatible with that basis, then progress will be made and steps taken forward. If not, then we’ll have a problem, Stefanou noted.

Asked what chapter will be discussed at the first meeting, Stefanou was not in a position to say. “When we are ready, we shall inform you,” he said.

According to the Cyprus Mail, the fact that they will meet only four times in a six week period does not appear to reflect well the call of the UN Secretary-General following his visit to Cyprus for the talks to go “farther and faster”.

According to diplomatic sources, Talat was keen to have as many meetings as possible before the ‘presidential’ elections in the north. However, the Greek Cypriot side proposed to have four meetings until April and no more, a figure the Turkish Cypriot side eventually agreed on.

The paper says Christofias appears less willing to fill his timetable with meetings with someone who may not be sitting at the opposite side of the negotiating table come May. Limiting the talks to four meetings could be interpreted as a desire by Christofias not to get deeply into negotiations on the highly sensitive and complex chapters that remain, at least until he knows who his opposite number will be for the next phase of the talks.

The target might be to tie up most of the loose ends in the EU affairs and economy chapters, while leaving the more emotive chapters of property, territory, security and guarantees for the following period.

President Christofias yesterday was forced to deny that he was stalling on the talks after receiving a letter from the leader of the Democratic Rally party, Nicos Anastasiades in which he said that there was a danger that Greek Cypriot side would be blamed fro stalling and consequently undermining the prospects for a solution.

This was in spite of Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat’s declared willingness to continue the intensified dialogue during the period before the elections in the Turkish Cypriot community, Anastassiades said.

In his reply Mr Christofias accused “certain circles” of orchestrating efforts to present the Greek Cypriot side as being against continuing the negotiations ahead of the Turkish Cypriot elections in April.

I say certain circles, because when I met the ambassadors of the five (UN Security Council) permanent members and explained our position to them, their unanimous stance was that they appreciate very much our initiatives, understanding and patience in relation with the dialogue,” he said.

Both letters were made public yesterday.

Mr Christofias said Mr Talat had asked him to interrupt the talks after the UN Secretary-General’s visit to Cyprus at the end of last month so that he could concentrate on his election campaign to which he had agreed.

“On the last day of the intensified dialogue, Mr Talat returned with a new request to continue our meetings after February 1, 2010 because he judged it would be beneficial for him,” Christofias said, adding that he had again agreed and suggested four meeting dates to Talat and the UN.

He said that Mr Talat’s potential election is not his responsibility and rejected any attempts to blame the Greek Cypriot side for Mr Talat’s potential failure in the elections.

The president reiterated that no substantive progress has been achieved on the various aspects of the Cyprus problem since the talks started some 18 months ago.

And this was not due to the positions of the Greek Cypriot side, Christofias added.

He blamed the lack of progress on the Turkish side and stressed that he would not make any unacceptable concessions for the sole purpose of assuring Talat’s re-election.

A Cyprus solution will elude the two leaders unless there is a “further concerted push”, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said.

In an op-ed published in the Cyprus Mail yesterday, Ban said: Cyprus is at a critical juncture. The Greek Cypriot leader, Demetris Christofias, and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart, Mehmet Ali Talat, are working hard to reach an agreement. But it will elude them without a further concerted push”.

He urged the leaders to do “what they know to be right”. “There will be sceptics and critics every step, and there will be those who seek to divert or derail the process in pursuit of their own interests and agendas,” the UN Secretary-General said.

The Cyprus Mail’s satirical column Coffeeshop refers to Lyndon B. Johnson’s comment regarding his decision to keep J. Edgar Hoover as head of the FBI, “Better to have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in” and says this may have been why the comrade wanted to keep EDEK and DIKO in his government alliance. He adds, however, that this piece of wisdom does not apply to our crazy country. EDEK may have been in the tent but it still insisted on pissing inside, just like DIKO has been doing for close to two years.

The comrade president did not seem bothered with the stench of the piss flooding the tent as long as the two parties stayed inside. He was quite happy to put on his rubber ring and flippers and swim in it for another three years, if it guaranteed the two parties backing his bid for re-election in 2013.

I really cannot see any other reason why he could have been upset about the patriotic socialists’ departure from the government tent. It was not as if he has lost their support – he never had it – so why would he want the principled socialists to stay in the tent, provocatively pissing on his policies every day, and why did he reward them with a share of the spoils of power if he were not thinking about the presidential elections?

He also refers to an email sent by leader of the Socialists and Democrats group in the European parliament, Martin Shulz, to Omirou urging him not to leave the alliance as this would “seriously destabilise the government at such an important moment in the negotiations about the future of Cyprus”. Nobody informed Shulz that his friend Yiannakis is not very keen on the continuation of the negotiations and had been destabilising the government long before the socialists’ defection.

The president of the Party of European Socialists (PES) Poul Nyrup Rasmussen also wrote to Omirou, telling him that his departure from the tent, “could not be regarded credible political solution by EDEK”, as it created “doubts and uncertainty”. Rasmussen praised the comrade and said that, in contrast to EDEK, the PES would carry on supporting the “negotiations and the peaceful solution”.

On Tuesday the comrade will meet with personality of the year, DIKO chief Marios Garoyian, to persuade him to stay in the alliance. Being a more principled opportunist than Yiannakis and with a second term as House president being dangled in his face, Marios will not need much persuading to stay in the tent.

As for the hardline freedom fighters of his party, who have been agitating for a heroic departure from the alliance, the comrade will assure them, via Marios, that there will be no settlement. Anyone who has watched the way he has been negotiating for the last 18 months, holding out for Eroglu’s election, will know that he was sincere.

And DIKO is much too principled a party to sacrifice the spoils of power for nothing.