Ozersay carrying "briefcase of surprises" to Athens

The chief negotiators for the two sides hold separate senior-level meetings in Athens and Ankara on Thursday as part of a new facet to the latest round of Cyprus talks.

Greek Cypriot negotiator Andreas Mavroyiannis will be in Ankara and Turkish Cypriot negotiator Kudret Ozersay will be in Athens.

In an interview with Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, published on Wednesday, Turkish Cypriot negotiator Kudret Ozersay said he was carrying a briefcase “full of surprises” with him.

Saying he knew the Greek Cypriot side would be bringing up the issues of the fenced off ghost town of Varosha, Turkish troops, settlers and guarantees during Mavroyiannis’ Ankara visit, Ozersay said the Turkish Cypriot side too had made its preparations.

“The Greeks will learn about the files that my briefcase has inside when I arrive in Athens. It is a briefcase full of surprises,” he said.

Ozersay said it would be the first time in 55 years that a Turkish Cypriot negotiator would be in Athens. The last one who visited Greece was the late Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash in 1959. Archbishop Makarios was the last Greek Cypriot leader to visit Ankara in 1962.

Ozersay is set to meet the General Secretary of the Greek Foreign Ministry, Anastassis Mitsialis, while Greek Cypriot negotiator Andreas Marvoyiannis will meet with the Undersecretary of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Feridun Sinirlioglu. 
Asked whether he thought there might be more such meetings, Ozersay said it depended on the outcome of today’s meetings, but it was very important in the future  that the visits took place on the same level, he said.

2. DIKO votes to go

DIKO voted to leave the government coalition last night over disagreements with President Anastasiades concerning the terms for the resumption of talks on the Cyprus problem.

Its central committee voted by 97 to 81 to uphold the recommendation of the party’s executive office to abandon the coalition due to its disagreement with a joint declaration agreed between Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu, which paved the way for substantive talks to reunify the island.

Observers suggested that the departure was not necessarily bad news for Anastasiades who could now push on with the UN-sponsored talks with the main opposition AKEL’s backing and can still count on DIKO for support in economy-related matters, such as the passage of the privatisation bill in parliament later on Thursday.

3.

An editorial in the Cyprus Mail says it is difficult to know the reasons behind President Anastasiades’ weekend revelation that the removal of the Turkish guarantee “could be achieved through the accession of Cyprus to the Partnership for Peace and subsequently to NATO.” No matter how hard we try we cannot think of one good reason for the president’s decision to share this idea with the public at such an early time in the talks, the paper says.

There are plenty of good reasons why he should have kept this idea out of the public domain. First, he is raising public expectations and if the Turkish side rejects his proposal he will appear to have failed. Second, opponents of a settlement on the Turkish side could use this to rally opposition to the talks and play up fears of an agreement in the north. Turkey’s guarantee could be a red line for the Turkish Cypriots like so many issues are for the Greek Cypriots, all of which should be resolved at the talks and not in public.

The president’s proposal has already sparked a knee-jerk reaction among Greek Cypriots, with AKEL threatening to reject any settlement guaranteed by NATO. Its mouthpiece claimed that the president wanted to replace Turkey with ‘another wolf’. Cyprus had ‘suffered’ at the hands of NATO and it was wrong of Anastasiades to pursue ‘DISY’s dogmatic position’ on membership of the Alliance (whereas AKEL’s irrational hostility to NATO was not dogmatic). The party accused him of destroying unity and urged him to withdraw his ‘unacceptable proposal.’

The naysayers also used the proposal as an excuse to attack Anastasiades. EDEK did not want any guarantees and certainly not from NATO. The Citizens’ Alliance, which adopts a negative line on everything related to the talks, predictably expressed dissatisfaction with the proposal. There have even been articles in the papers slamming the idea on the grounds that NATO cannot be trusted.

While the president’s proposal was constructive – a sensible alternative to the existence of guarantor powers – it was a mistake to make it public. Hopefully he will learn from this and avoid public discussion of his ideas before they are even discussed, let alone agreed, at negotiations. There is no reason to give excuses to the naysayers, on both sides of the Green Line, to poison the climate, which is their only objective.

It serves no purpose to have public negotiations among ourselves. There are issues that are better left unsaid until they are agreed and this must become the president’s guiding principle, the paper concludes.

4. Religious leaders support talks

Archbishop Chrysostomos, the Turkish Cypriot Mufti, Dr Talip Atalay, and other religious leaders of the island have all expressed their support for the talks to reunite the island stressing that there is no other option to cooperation, communication and coexistence.

The religious leaders were brought together over a meal in their honour at the home of the Swedish ambassador where they agreed on a joint communique.

Archbishop Chrysostomos said that the religious leaders are coexisting on the island and that there is love and mutual understanding among them.

Mufti Dr Talip Atalay said that the religious leader are sending a message of peace and that they speak a different language from that of the politicians.