Cyprus downbeat on unification talks

By Tony Barber

Demetris Christofias, president of Cyprus, painted a gloomy picture on Thursday of the prospects for overcoming the island’s division, saying negotiations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots were making little progress.

“Unfortunately, I must say my expectations, and the expectations of the great majority of the people of Cyprus of both communities, have not been justified up to now,” Mr Christofias told reporters in Brussels, where he was preparing for a European Union summit.

Cyprus has been divided into a Greek Cypriot south and a Turkish Cypriot north since 1974, when Turkey invaded the island in response to a Greek-inspired coup aimed at absorbing Cyprus into Greece.

Mr Christofias, leader of the internationally recognised republic of Cyprus, and Mehmet Ali Talat, leader of a secessionist Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus that no country except Turkey recognises, opened talks in September 2008 on reuniting the country as a bizonal, bicommunal federation.

Experts on the Cyprus dispute say the talks are approaching a critical moment because Mr Talat, widely regarded as a moderate who is keen on a settlement, faces a presidential election next April that he appears in danger of losing to a hardline candidate.

However, Mr Christofias said: “These are artificial deadlines. Talat must show more understanding, instead of putting forward intransigent positions. Otherwise, it’s blackmail. I’m not a political fellow who accepts blackmail. I’m ready for a solution before April.”

The EU and US are keen to keep the talks alive, fearing that a breakdown will wreck Turkey’s EU membership bid and hobble efforts to forge closer relations between the EU and Nato.

Mr Christofias put much of the blame on Turkey’s political and military leadership, saying: “The main problem for me is that Turkey must assist in a solution of the Cyprus problem. They must recognise the Republic of Cyprus. They refuse.”

He said he had made a concession by offering citizenship of a reunited Cypriot state to 50,000 Anatolian Turks who have settled in northern Cyprus since 1974. The precise number of Turkish settlers on Cyprus is disputed. Many estimates run to more than 100,000.

Mr Christofias laughed as he described Mr Talat’s response. “He said to me: ‘There are no settlers, there are only citizens of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.’”

Mr Talat, interviewed by the Financial Times in September, said the present talks were “the last chance for a solution”.

Both sides say property disputes are an especially difficult issue, with many Greek Cypriots who lost their homes after 1974 wanting them back, and Turkish Cypriot negotiators defending the new owners and emphasising compensation for the dispossessed. “We have deep, deep differences here,” Mr Christofias said.

Another disagreement concerns a Turkish Cypriot demand for equal numerical representation in some 50 institutions, such as the island’s central bank and competition authority, Mr Christofias said.

Turkish Cypriots accounted for about 20 per cent of Cyprus’s population in 1974, but tens of thousands have since left the island, with arrivals from mainland Turkey more than making up the difference.