What really happened at Greentree

What happened at Greentree was that President Christofias managed to buy some time, says Makarios Droushiotis writing in Politis. The big decisions on the Cyprus problem have simply been postponed till the end of February when Alexander Downer will decide whether to call a multilateral conference.

Most observers in New York believe that the UN S-G will probably go ahead and call a multilateral conference leaving it up to each side to decide whether or not to attend. In fact the UN S-G was ready to do so at Greentree but agreed to allow for some more time in order to help Christofias.

As far as the UN is concerned, the prerequisites for calling a multilateral conference are already in place. The UN S-G himself said that only three issues remain to be settled – the election of the executive, the property issue and citizenship (the settlers). If it is true that just these three issues remain, then the UN is right, the Cyprus problem can be solved in a few hours. The fact that only these issues are being discussed before a final conference means that there are no other serious differences, and even these can be bridged.

The way a future President is elected is not a disagreement that can justifiably scupper the whole deal. The property issue has already been solved by the UN technocrats but is being kept open until the issue of territory is clarified, while the issue of the settlers is within the framework of maintaining the population ratios.

Thus the talks are within a hair’s breadth of reaching an agreement. Politically, however, an agreement is completely unrealistic. President Christofias has never admitted that there has been serious progress in the talks, nor has he ever done what the UN S-G had encouraged him to do, namely prepared the people for a solution, or even sought political alliances to help him work a solution. Instead, he is cultivating, even now, a climate of failure, or deadlock and mistrust of the other side, to such an extent that the people no longer trust him or his interlocutor. On the contrary, society is petrified of all the dangers that lie ahead.

Christofias went to Greentree with the National Council’s decision to say three ‘no’s’. Even though he had entered the endgame of the talks, he was still talking about not having asphyxiating deadlines and arbitration.

As expected, the Turkish side, aware of Christofias’ public reluctance to go to the next stage, came with specific proposals on all three open issues.They proposed that the system of cross-voting for the Senate (which elects the President) should come into force after 9 years (the UN believes they would be willing to come down to five, ie after its second term). On the property issue they submitted a package which conforms with the study of the UN experts. On citizenship they presented the recent population census which the UN accepted as valid.

Christofias discussed the question of the election of the President, extensively and some progress was achieved. He announced he was unprepared to discuss the property issue and used as an excuse the Turkish side’s delay in submitting data. On being pressured by the S-G to reply, he said he wanted time to think and study the data in Cyprus. He also said he did not want the talks to end in failure. Ban Ki-moon’s intention was to either call a multilateral conference or declare a failure. In the end a compromise was found giving Christofias the extra time and Eroglu the indirect date for a conference.

The S-G’s reference to the UN Security Council resolutions is just a sweetening of the pill in order to allow Christofias to handle the situation in Cyprus. According to the paper’s sources in New York, the UN S-G will call a confence without the prior approval of the Security Council. The UN Secretariat has received legal advice confirming that the UN S-G does not require approval for the initiatives he takes. Of course, holding such a conference does presuppose the approval of the two sides in the sense that he cannot order them to attend, but can only invite them and they can refuse if they choose.

Christofias, however, has said that he believes that the talks will continue even during the time of the EU presidency, which shows his lack of political judgement and how disconnected he is with reality.

In an opinion piece, Makarios Droushiotis says that the Cyprus problem is on a knife’s edge. The whole of the international community wants a soution before Cyprus takes on the EU presidency. The collective hullaballou might serve the internal political game as it has been played since the 30s, but all this shouting and negativity has resulted in us step by step losing half of Cyprus and now preparing to legalise partition under the worst possible terms.

A solution in the immediate future is unfeasible because there is no leader willing to bear the responsibility or accept the challenges and the risks and lead society into a new era. Eight years ago Christofias told us he just wanted two or three changes to the Annan plan, now he is talking of no timeframes and has become the laughing stock of diplomatic circles.

Christofias is not up to this task and is hiding behind the mantra of no asphyxiating timeframes. But events have passed us by. The European Union, irrespective of Turkey’s EU course, is fed up of the Cyprus problem. The German representative at the Security Council during Downer’s briefing, linked the talks with the EU presidency. But his statement was suppressed, while all the political parties attacked Downer, the British and the Americans, because that’s what they have been trained to do for decades now.

Christofias’ claim that he can control the procedure through the Security Council is yet another sign of his ignorance of international politics.

Turkey without trying too hard has managed to persuade everyone that it is in a hurry for a solution, while the Director General of our Foreign Ministry was rushing over to the State Department to explain why we didn’t want a multilateral conference and deadlines. The scene is set for them to put the blame squarely on us.

The only ones able to save us are the West and Downer, who is going to write the report on the failure of the UN initiative and decide on our future. It would be wise to try to prove Davutoglu’s predictions wrong regarding the recognition or semi recognition of the north. Our politicians are trying tooth and nail to prove him right. The tragedy is that we mistake this cannibalism for the national struggle.

The Sunday Mail’s satirical column Coffeeshop says that paranoid hysteria and mass anxiety spread like a cholera epidemic among the Cyprob warriors, as soon as Ban Ki-moon finished reading the statement about the failure of the Greentree meeting and the timeframes he had set for the completion of the talks and for the holding of the colossally undesirable multilateral conference.

Within minutes, the knives were out for the bungling village idiot, who, despite being strengthened by the three ‘nos’ sanctioned by the National Council, failed to utter a single one of them (or if he did, he was ignored) when Ban set his timeframes for the conclusion of the talks.You almost felt sorry for the comrade as his embarrassingly moronic plan for ‘never-ending talks despite his sincere wish for an agreement’ collapsed and now he has to wear an oxygen mask to cope with the asphyxiating timeframes and double his police guard because the bash-patriotic warriors are baying for his blood. Two of them have already called for his resignation, while others have demanded that he should step aside and allow someone else to be our side’s negotiator.

Being the coward that he is, the comrade has gone into hiding since the Ban statement, leaving his Akel flunkeys to take the heat and defend his incompetence, as happened after the Mari blast. He may even address the nation this week and announce the appointment of an investigating committee to establish who was politically responsible for the Greentree fiasco.

The comrade spoke briefly to Cypriot hacks, immediately after Ban’s shocker, and defiantly told them that there was no timeframe for a multilateral conference. Ban was merely expressing his intention to call a conference but only under certain conditions, he claimed, which meant ‘late April or early May’ was not a timeframe.

The real timeframe was at the end of March when Ban would ask Big Bad Al if there was adequate progress to call a conference and Al would answer affirmatively, on the grounds that there would never be any progress in the talks and because the EU wants a settlement, at all costs, before Cyprus takes over the EU presidency.

This was evident, when Big Bad Al briefed the members of the Security Council about the Greentree meeting. Germany’s representative was extremely pushy telling Al to get on with it and make sure there was a deal by the end of June, because the EU does not want to have to deal with the intractable problems that would arise if a divided Cyprus took over the presidency.

The comrade gave instructions that no mention of what the German representative had said was included in the report sent to Cyprus foreign ministry about the Security Council meeting. He did not want anyone in Kyproulla to know that his friend Angela Merkel fully supported the timeframes and the multilateral conference.

Since Greentree, the presidential camp has been engaging in the only thing it knows how to do – propaganda, claiming that there were no timeframes, and that the attacks on the great leader were motivated by “political expediencies and personal ambitions, while the national interest is relegated to secondary importance.”

Meanwhile the bash-patriots have been out in force creating Annan plan conditions, in preparation for the multilateral conference. The only risk is that the paranoid hysteria may have peaked too soon. Big Bad Al whom we all love to hate, has become the target of universal abuse, vilified as a totally biased Turk-lover that eats Greek babies for breakfast, garnished with tomatoes illegally imported from Turkey.

All the parties have been demanding that he be replaced immediately, because he is to blame for everything. Meanwhile the bash-patriotic tree-hugger Perdikis has undertaken a brave initiative. He has been in contact with all the parties in order to persuade them to support a House of Representatives’ resolution, declaring Downer “untrustworthy and undesirable.” The resolution will follow a debate in the House on Thursday about “the dark role played by Downer in the Cyprus problem.”