Committees ready to start

UNFICYP announced that the heads of the technical committees and the working groups will start their work on Friday 18 April. "The representatives of Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat have, after a series of meetings, decided on the agendas of the six Working Groups and seven Technical Committees”, it said. The process will begin with a brief ceremony.

The UN Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe briefed the members of the UN Security Council, in New York, on his recent visit in the region and the outcome of his meetings in Nicosia, Athens and Ankara. Speaking to the press after the briefing, Mr Pascoe said he gave the Security Council “a fairly optimistic report” and noted: “All of us recognizing that there are many-many difficult issues out there that have to be resolved but at this point the working groups are being set up, the process I think is being quite good and we’re looking forward to them getting into the various parts of the substance and the issues next week. So I hope the process is moving forward”. Invited to say if 2008 would be “a year for Cyprus”, the UN official said “Well, my sense of this is that I think the entire world would be delighted to see Cyprus move forward on its negotiations and we would like to see this settled as soon as possible. I’ve always thought that we have to give these things time to work but I will very much like to see this Cyprus issue settled just as soon as possibly can be”.

An editorial in the Cyprus Mail says that the only way to limit the damage done by the media and the hard-liners in both communities who are opposed to any compromise is for the leaders of the two sides to avoid engaging in the customary war of words and public blame game. Unfortunately this has not been the case and in the last few days the exchanges between Demetris Christofias and Mehmet Ali Talat appear to be getting out of control. All that these unnecessary exchanges achieved was to provide the opponents of a settlement with ammunition to attack the peace process. The two leaders should perhaps take a look at the responsible and constructive way their two aides, Ozdil Nami and George Iacovou, have been conducting themselves during their ongoing discussions for the opening of Ledra Street and the setting up of the technical committees. They have set an example of how the representatives of the two sides should behave, avoiding any statement that could be construed as antagonistic and telling the media that differences which delayed agreement on specific issues would be resolved. And neither has used the media to gain an advantage over the other. If anything, Nami and Iacovou have shown how talks should be conducted when both sides want to achieve a result. It is a shame that their bosses are incapable of following the shining example their aides have set.

Andreas Paraschos writing in Politis praises the Minister of Education who in an interview to the paper said that school children should understand the importance of reuniting Cyprus. He adds that perhaps a big step towards better understanding between the two communities would be introduce the teaching of Turkish in primary schools (and Greek on the other side), so that in ten years or so we can have a generation that can communicate in both languages.

Alecos Constantinides in Alithia refers to all the recent comments about a solution being by the Cypriots for the Cypriots and wonders who on earth was preventing us all these years from reaching a solution? One could even assume that it was the UN, and that if left to their own devices the Cypriots could have done it better. But even now when we say that, we don’t really mean it, because we are dying for the UNSG to appoint the right staff and start working. No, it’s not the UN’s fault, or the foreigners fault that the Cyprus problem hasn’t been solved yet.

Savvas Iacovides in Simerini says that the Turks have managed to get the existence of a border into the collective consciousness of G/Cs. It’s got them to indirectly acknowledge the existence of the pseudostate and by presenting their passports are in reality asking for permission to go and see their own houses. Even the visiting Czech Prime Minister the other day thrice mentioned ‘borders’ and the ‘TRNC’ and put the Turkish invasion down to a internal conflict. Even EU officials have recently been talking of ‘borders’. The Turks know how to exploit everything, politically, diplomatically and as PR. Just think of the word ‘isolation’. Words are like loaded guns. And they are killing us. And our leaders are whistling nonchalantly.