An enemy of Cyprus

Tuesday night’s televised press conference by President Papadopoulos has been met with angry reaction from the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Turkish Cypriot leadership—ok, so what else is new?

Turkey strongly criticized Mr. Papadopoulos who said in a televised press conference that the Turkish occupation army “was an enemy of Cyprus.”

More on that statement a bit later ... let's focus on the part of the press conference that I found interesting, shall we? The President stated that during his meeting last week with Mr. Talat ... the Turkish Cypriot leader actually revealed that a majority of Turkish Cypriots do not support a federal Cyprus, no kidding. Instead, they favor a two-state solution. Another statement that was made by the President which really surprised me was that Mr. Talat didn't even know that Cyprus is actually an EU net contributor. Mr. Papadopoulos stated that...

"He (Mr. Talat) did not know that Cyprus is among the few countries which is a net contributor, that is we give the EU more funds than we take."

Interesting indeed. Now, let’s get back to that statement by Mr. Papadopoulos where he referred to the Turkish army occupying Cyprus as an “enemy” and the subsequent predictable response from Ankara.

This is what the Turkish Foreign Ministry had to say:

“It must be remembered that the declaration of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) as an enemy serves peace by no means. It is unacceptable that the TSK is turned into a target. Papadopoulos is supposed to understand that.”

The Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mr. Levent Bilman, went on to say that...

“It appears Papadopoulos forgot the fact that Turkey is a guarantor country on the island together with Greece and Britain and that the presence of the Turkish armed forces on the island legally stems from international agreements.”

Mr. Talat, who is a strong supporter of the TSK, parroted the Turkish Foreign Ministry by stating the main obstacle to a peaceful solution was the Greek Cypriot tendency to treat the Turkish troops stationed on the island as an occupation army. Honestly, an argument this weak and absurd doesn’t even deserve a response.

In a statement before his departure to New York to address the UN General Assembly, the President of the Cypriot Republic responded to the rhetoric coming out of Ankara by stating:

“Our view is well known, the presence of the Turkish occupation forces and the Turkish invasion, cannot be legally based on the Treaty of Guarantee, and their presence in Cyprus, is, in any case, illegal. We said that if Turkey believes otherwise, then it can appeal or agree to appeal to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.”

More on all this in the video below.

Take a look at this video which starts off with the Government Spokesman Vassilis Palmas reaction. The video also focuses in on the political leader of EDEK Mr. Yiannakis Omirou. Omirou’s response is priceless (ha).

Mr. Talat, the Annan Plan is Dead...

And there is no chance of resurrecting it.

Further more, all five United Nations Security Council permanent members have endorsed the July 8th agreement as the only process now on the table for a Cyprus settlement.

Why are you trying to dilute this agreement?

You state there is nothing in the July 8 agreement prohibiting time frames. Why all this sudden talk on time frames? For the past 14 months, you have done nothing but drag your feet with regard to the implementation of the agreement that was reached between you and Mr. Papadopoulos on the 8th of July during the Mission of Under-Secretary-General Ibrahim Gambari.

The president of the Republic has extended his hand and offered to meet again with you soon to proceed forward with the peace process. Why have you turned down this invitation?

(Cypriot media coverage below on the failed meeting)




From the Cyprus Weekly:

No breakthrough

Not clear when leaders will meet again

By Menelaos Hadjicostis

HOPES that the Papadopoulos-Talat talks would deliver a needed breakthrough putting the July 8 agreement on track faded as fast as it took to read a terse, three-sentence wrap-up statement pronouncing the process comatose.

It’s unclear when the two will meet again and indications are that the Turkish side wants to dilute the agreement and render it inert so that it can be supplanted by direct talks on a resurrected Annan Plan, Nicosia charged.

"Mr Talat wanted changes to the Gambari process. He wants immediate talks without the committees, or for the role of the committees to be limited to a purely technical level of listing the headings to be discussed," President Tassos Papadopoulos told reporters after the three-hour meeting.

The rationale behind the Nicosia-inspired, twin-track procedure (a.k.a. Gambari process) that both sides signed off on last year is to task committees with discussing day-to-day and core Cyprus issues so as to adequately prepare the ground for full-fledged negotiations.

Grapple

The two community leaders would get together periodically to grapple with major sticking points officials would point out.

But the Turkish Cypriot leader sought to "re-arrange" the agreement by setting a two-month deadline on committee talks thus "accelerating" what he said was an open-ended process that "would last 14 months, 14 years, or 140 years.

"We observed that there was no psychological preparedness for the opening of comprehensive negotiations," said Mehmet Ali Talat, who also wanted a reunification deal by the end of 2008.

"Our proposal was aimed at accelerating the July 8 process, disciplining it and turning it into a process that can yield results. How is this moving away from the July 8 process?"

Nicosia’s unequivocal reply was that comprehensive negotiations without due preparation free from time constraints are doomed to failure.

Such a failure could raise the spectre of permanent partition as the international community’s post-referendum disenchantment could coalesce into the belief that there can be no Cyprus settlement.

Papadopoulos said diminishing the role of the committees would "not have accelerated the process, but on the contrary, would have expedited the realisation that there is deadlock".

Strident

Papadopoulos rejected both the notion of open-ended talks dragging on indefinitely as well as setting time constraints to negotiations.

He said slapping a deadline on the process cannot guarantee there would be adequate preparation for substantial talks to take place on the leadership level.

"We’re not talking about discussions that would carry on indefinitely or over the long term, simply the course of discussions themselves would dictate the timetable," said Papadopoulos.

Government Spokesman Vassilis Palmas said Talat was so strident in his positions that he turned down a Papadopoulos invitation to meet again on Monday for another try at a deal.

Papadopoulos proposed an October date for another face-to-face sit-down but Talat was non-committal.

"We’ll make yet another effort to implement this process…the President of the Republic tried to convince Mr Talat to implement the agreement and Mr Talat tried every way to free himself from it," said Palmas.

Palmas said the Talat’s pitch for regular meetings with Papadopoulos intended to railroad the process back to directly negotiating the defunct Annan Plan, irrespective of whether the committees had marked progress.

"President Papadopoulos rejected carrying out negotiations based on the Annan plan as Mr Talat insinuated…the agreed-upon procedure is the July 8 process which foresees the basis for a settlement arising from the implementation of the agreement," said Palmas.

All five UN Security Council permanent members have endorsed July 8 as the only process now in play that could lead to full-fledged settlement negotiations.

Nicosia’s sees July 8 as a vehicle to shift the basis of a Cyprus settlement away from the Annan Plan that Greek Cypriots voted down for fear that it would put the entire island under Turkey’s thumb.

Unready

Analysts suggested this failure could mean Ankara is either unready or unwilling to get the ball rolling on Cyprus on the belief that continued stalemate won’t hurt its EU accession prospects.

The only glimmer of hope for resuscitating July 8 lies in the fact that both leaders agreed to keep the process going by meeting again.

"Mr Papadopoulos and Mr Talat held their discussion in a constructive atmosphere," said a sombre Moller, reading from a prepared statement.

"They agreed on the need for the earliest start of the process, and discussed other issues, leading to a comprehensive settlement. They agreed to continue their contact through the United Nations and to meet again when appropriate."

Despite a shared understanding of the need for "the earliest start," the obvious problem with that statement is when the two leaders would meet again. The vague "when appropriate" leaves the process hanging in the air for at least until late autumn.

Cyprus to seek ancient shipwrecks

Here's an interesting article from Reuters:

Cyprus to seek ancient shipwrecks

By Michele Kambas

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Cyprus is to launch sea surveys in an area where dozens of vessels led by warring successors to Alexander the Great are believed to have sunk in battle for control over the island in 306 BC.

Encouraged by the discovery of one wreck from a later Roman era, the survey slated for the summer of 2008 will extend into deep waters from the south-east tip of the island, known as Cape Greco, the island's Antiquities Department said.

"Cyprus is a crossroads and is very rich in ancient shipwrecks," said Pavlos Flourentzos, director of Cyprus's Department of Antiquities.

Historical accounts suggest that the Cape Greco region -- a rocky outcrop between the now popular tourist resorts of Agia Napa and Protaras, saw one of the biggest naval battles of the ancient world.

According to the ancient Greek historian, Diodorus of Sicily, in 306 BC Demetrios the Poliorketes (Besieger) triumphed over Ptolemy I of Egypt in a naval engagement off Cyprus, with dozens of vessels sunk as the result of combat.

"It is well known that there was a naval engagement in the region in 306 BC, so there is a potential of finding wrecks, or parts of wrecks, in deeper waters," Flourentzos told Reuters on Thursday.

Ptolemy I, one of the generals of Alexander the Great, lost control of Cyprus for a period of 10 years after his defeat at the hands of Demetrios Poliorketes. Demetrios was son of Antigonus, a Macedonian nobleman who later ruled Asia Minor
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Politicians from across the political spectrum gave their reaction to the Papadopoulos – Talat Meeting

Politicians from across the Cypriot political spectrum gave their reaction to the Papadopoulos – Talat meeting. The following video is a sampling of early reaction to that meeting: