Comments on Greentree 2

President Christofias in a statement after the end of the Greentree 2 meetings, said that, while the agreement to exchange data is progress, in essence no progress had been achieved.

He said that many discussions were held during the meetings with the Secretary General without any progress being achieved. “The two sides insist on their positions”, he said.

However, he expressed satisfaction that the UN Secretary-General’s statement included their concern that any progress achieved should be significant progress, which would solve the internal aspects of the Cyprus problem, as provided by the Security Council resolutions, before discussing the possibility of convening an international conference.

On the question of government he said the differences were not just on the election of the executive power, but also on foreign relations, international relations, and the issue of the air space.

He said the two sides must exchange specific and significant data concerning the property issue and, at the same time, discuss the territory issue.

“Not necessarily to present maps”, he said. “This is not what we are asking. We are asking for the Turkish Cypriot side’s intention as regards our basic demand for territorial adjustments. Namely, that 100,000 refugees since 1974 ought to be offered the possibility to return under Greek Cypriot administration and to have full ownership of their properties. This will greatly help us discuss with an open mind and heart the issue of property, which concerns the areas that will remain under Turkish Cypriot administration”.

He said that the Turkish Cypriot side did submit some data on property outside the deadline that had been set, which can be found on the internet. A commitment had been undertaken by the two sides at the first meeting at Greentree to create a committee which would discuss specific data confidentially but unfortunately the Turkish side did not respond.

He stressed that the property issue had been linked to the territorial issue throughout the discussions and gave credit to the Secretary General because in all of his interventions and positions, as well as in those of his aides and team, the connection of the territorial and the property issues had been emphasized.

President Christofias said he had made it clear to the Secretary-General, as was decided at the National Council, that a timeframe for the international conference is not acceptable.

He added that the Secretary-General in his statement expresses his intention to call a conference under certain specific preconditions, namely that there is important progress, which will meet with the Greek Cypriot side’s approval and which will be recorded by Mr Downer.

“We will have a say, and the Secretary-General will consult with us on whether this progress exists and on whether a conference will be convened, always under the precondition set by the UN Security Council, namely that the position of the Secretary-General will be consistent with the last resolution as well as with all the other UN resolutions regarding the convening of an international conference”.

The Turkish Cypriot side expressed mild satisfaction at the outcome of the Greentree Summit yesterday, saying they were leaving New York having achieved much of what they’d set out to do, the Cyprus Mail reports.

“If the Special Representative’s report at the end of March is positive, Ban will call for the five-way conference to take place in late April or early May,” Turkish Cypriot leader Dervish Eroglu’s special representative Kudret Ozersay said immediately after the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon gave his assessment of the summit yesterday.

“As the Secretary General pointed out, this will happen whether or not the Greek Cypriots oppose it with the excuse that all internal issues had not been resolved,” he added. "We leave this summit having achieved what we came for."

The Turkish Cypriot side had stated before the summit that getting a date for a multi-party conference would be seen as a major breakthrough, as it would herald the final stage of the talks ahead of a referendum. Although a date is still conditional on the special advisors report, Eroglu believes that “the conference is closer to happening today than it was yesterday”.

The representative seemed less pleased however with how the Turkish Cypriot side’s proposals on property, citizenship and the electoral system had been received by the Greek Cypriots, saying that “if they had been better received, there would have been more progress”.

“We thought our proposals would be acceptable to the Greek Cypriot side and that we’d be able to bridge the differences. The UN thought so too,” he added.

Eroglu’s spokesman Osman Ertug echoed Ozersay’s assessment but told the Cyprus Mail that Christofias and his team had refused to even read the documents presented by the Turkish Cypriot team.

“They politely accepted them and said ‘we’ll read them when we get back to Cyprus’. This is nothing more than a delaying tactic,” he said.

As Ban Ki-moon was making statements in New York, in Nicosia Greek Cypriot politicians were busy slamming UN envoy Alexander Downer for supposedly referring to the ‘Greek Cypriot’ EU presidency’ rather than using either the ‘Cyprus’ presidency or the Republic of Cyprus’ presidency’, says an article in the Cyprus Mail.

House President and leader of socialists EDEK Yiannakis Omirou denounced the comment saying it was unacceptable, and flagrantly violated all the resolutions of the UN Security Council on Cyprus, the UN Charter, international law rules and the principles and values of the EU.

DIKO described Downer as the “great subverter” and called for his immediate removal otherwise the UN would be in a difficult position when it came to safeguarding their credibility and impartiality.

AKEL leader Andros Kyprianou said the comment was not accidental as Downer knew well that it was the Republic taking over the presidency.
However, the official transcript of Downer’s remark, obtained by the Cyprus Mail, the UN envoy made it clear he was only referring to the ‘Greek Cypriots’ in the context under which they are referred to by the UN in the negotiations.

He said: “… I think it’s very important that the two leaders do make substantial progress and as you know the Greek Cypriots take over the presidency of the European Union on the 1st of July. This will be a major responsibility for them. I know the whole of the European Union, that’s 26 other countries including some very big countries, will be looking to the Greek Cypriots, as we say in the context of these negotiations, to carry forward the presidency of the European Union.”

Former President George Vasiliou sees the two week deadline for progress in Cyprus, not as pressure on us, but as pressure on Turkey.

“As long as Downer's report says there is progress and if the progress is consistent with the Security Council resolutions, only then will he consider a multinational conference”, he said in an interview on Sigma television.

“Downer has a responsibility to write a report which shows that any progress that has been made has been consistent with the Security Council resolutions. What is Downer going to do if the Turkish side insists, as it has been, on two states, two air spaces, two this and two that? What can he say?”

Asked if this new scenario of a two week deadline, an upgraded role for Downer and the looming threat of a multinational conference scares him, he replied:

“What scares me is that 37 years have passed without a solution and voices are being heard today saying, since we've waited 37 years, we might as well wait for another 37 years”.

He said we must understand that time is working against us. As long as the international community supports the principles that President Makarios and subsequently the whole of the political leadership for a federal solution, we must take advantage of this support, otherwise the result will be destructive for Cyprus. “I can't stress this enough", he said.

Referring to the upgraded role of Alexander Downer, he said “we must stop always blaming third parties. It used to be de Cuellar, then Ghali, then de Soto. Things aren't like that. We have to stay steady on our positions and be persuasive”.

What has changed, he said, is that pressure on Turkey has increased. When the interviewer asked, whether the pressure was on our side because of the deadline, he said it isn’t to our advantage not to have a solution. Asked what if we're pressured to agree to a bad solution, he said that a bad solution was relative.

“There are many people who don't want federation”, he went on. “Let them say so openly. And let the people decide. Do you know what not wanting federation means? It doesn't mean partition as many believe. It means that our grandchildren will not live in a Greek Cyprus”.

President Christofias was partially correct in predicting that nothing would come of the talks in Greentree. There was no breakthrough in the deadlocked procedure while the progress achieved, according to the UN Secretary-General, was ‘limited’ despite the ‘intensive and robust’ discussions, says the Cyprus Mail in its editorial today.

What did come out of ‘Greentree 2’ was a change of peace procedure, as the three ‘nos’ Christofias was authorised to utter by the National Council were ignored by Ban Ki-moon. He set definite time-frames for the completion of the talks and the holding of a multilateral conference and implicitly offered UN mediation - if not arbitration - to assist the sides to bridge their differences.

Christofias was extremely naive if he seriously thought that he would be able to secure Ban’s agreement for the indefinite continuation of the talks at Greentree. In fact, Ban’s frustration and loss of patience with the two sides was blatantly obvious in the statement he read out yesterday. The diplomatic wording could not conceal this frustration with Christofias and Eroglu, who had ignored his urging ‘to make decisive moves’ that would pave the way to a settlement.

He would no longer be directly involved in the procedure – there was no mention of any other meeting with the leaders – leaving everything in the hands of his Special Advisor Alexander Downer, who would decide if there was adequate progress by March to justify the calling of a multi-lateral conference in late April or early May.
As Ban stressed, it was down to the leaders to ‘make the decisive steps to move to a final agreement.’ In what was a clear dig at Christofias he said: ‘At this stage of the talks, to maintain the momentum and continue negotiations even in an intensive manner, is not enough.’

The only thing, Ban did not mention in yesterday’s statement is what would happen if Downer reports in March that the leaders did not make the decisive steps, the differences in the core issues remained and that a multi-lateral conference would be pointless. In statements made yesterday, the Turkish side took the view that the failure by Ban to call a multilateral conference by May would signal the end of the procedure.
This interpretation is not unjustified, given that Ban has repeatedly spoken about the ‘endgame’ while also informing Christofias and Eroglu, more recently, that ‘talks have entered the final phase’. Christofias remained oblivious to all these messages, assuring journalists, last night, that there was no time-frame for a multi-lateral conference.

But he conveniently failed to mention the time-frame for the end of the peace procedure.