By Jean Christou
UNITED NATIONS Secretary-general Kofi Annan said yesterday that the Greek and Turkish Cypriot sides still have time to agree on his proposed settlement plan before the December 12 EU summit deadline.
"The time has not run out. We are today the third of December, and we have almost nine to 10 days and I think that is plenty of time," Annan told reporters in New York.
"The issues are not new... and luckily the same leaders have been working with us on these issues for about 25 years and we do have time to come to an agreement."
Annan wants a framework deal before the European Union summit opening in Copenhagen on December 12 at which the bloc is expected to invite ten states, including Cyprus, to join in 2004.
As the two sides were yesterday concluding their final comments on the plan to submit to the UN, reports from Athens said that Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash had urged the EU not to jeopardise a possible peace deal by admitting a divided island next month.
In a letter received by the Danish EU presidency yesterday, Denktash vowed to give his reply soon to the UN. "In the meantime, I hope that the whole process will not be jeopardised by the EU at the Copenhagen summit by admitting 'Cyprus' while the UN is exercising every effort to reach common ground between the two parties," the letter said.
The Turkish Cypriot side, in its reply to Annan, is expected to register objections on proposals in the plan concerning property, sovereignty, Turkey's guarantor rights, and territory, reports from the north said earlier this week. Yesterday, reports from the north quoted Denktash as saying his reply would consist of around 30 pages.
Denktash said he had heard that the Greek Cypriot side was going to submit around 31 pages.
"Our concerns will be at least as much," he said. He was speaking on his way to visit his doctor for a checkup. He has been in the US recovering from heart surgery in October. Denktash has said he wants to return to Cyprus by the end of this week.
Late yesterday evening the National Council, President Glafcos Clerides' advisory body on the Cyprus problem, concluded a two-day discussion on the plan. The Greek Cypriot side has not specified what issues it will object to.
Both sides overshot last Saturday's deadline for replying to the 140-page proposal, which has left the international community racing to have an initial agreement signed before December 12. Earlier yesterday Papapetrou said: "It is no secret that pressure on both sides is increasing... and without exaggeration these are the most crucial ten days in Cyprus' history since the tragic events of 1974."
"We are ready to make use of every hour of every day towards this aim, but if there is not enough time before Copenhagen then negotiations should continue because of the new dynamism in the Cyprus problem," he added. The government spokesman said the Greek Cypriot side's views would be handed to the UN chief's Special Adviser on Cyprus Alvaro de Soto within an already agreed timeframe.
De Soto told CyBC television last night that he had hoped to receive the replies by Saturday and expressed "impatience" and "some disappointment" that the two sides had failed to meet the deadline. He also said that if both sides wanted extensive changes made to the plan it would be a "problem" as far as the proposed deadlines are concerned. The proposals contained in the plan "do not come from outer space" he said. "They come from ideas the UN has collected over many months of direct talks."
As the pressure mounts the international community has begun all-out onslaught in the region to try and meet the December deadline. US Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman will be in Cyprus today as part of a visit covering Athens, Ankara and Nicosia, and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was in Ankara yesterday to try and push things forward.
Straw urged Turkey to reach agreement on a Cyprus settlement ahead of the summit and backed Ankara's call for a firm date to begin talks with Brussels on joining the European Union.
He lent support to Annan's plan, which he described as "the best opportunity for a stable and prosperous future for both the Turkish and Greek communities of the island of Cyprus".
"We want to see very fast progress made on the proposals of the UN Secretary-general, Kofi Annan, (to reunify Cyprus) with a view... that there be an agreement by December 12," Straw said.
CYPRUS MAIL 04/12/2002
By Jean Christou
Britain will use all its influence to ensure a date is agreed next week for Turkey to start negotiations on membership of the European Union, the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, promised the country's new political leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, last night.
Mr Straw urged Mr Erdogan to secure parliamentary ratification for a new raft of human rights reforms – approved by the Turkish cabinet yesterday – in time for the EU summit in Copenhagen, on Thursday and Friday next week, which will consider Turkish candidacy.
But Mr Straw went his furthest yet in making clear that Britain would be taking a lead in seeking to secure a firm date for negotiations to start. He went out of his way to praise Turkey for the "significant progress" it has made on human rights.
Turkey is widely criticised for its record of torture in prisons and other abuses, but last year it introduced 34 measures to improve human rights, followed by another 14 in August, including the abolition of the death penalty. Yesterday the cabinet approved a 36-point package aimed at meeting EU criteria for entry.
Mr Straw, who signed a joint UK-Turkey action plan to help Ankara fulfil EU entry criteria, said: "The point I keep making to my colleagues in Europe is that they have got to think strategically, as Mr Erdogan is doing, about the best future for this very large country on our eastern flanks.
"Ultimately, the future of Turkey is in the hands of the Turkish people but we can be a force in securing a good future for it."
Turkey will dominate much of the Copenhagen summit because its support is pivotal in two areas. Ankara can help secure an agreement between Nato and the EU on pooling command and control assets for Europe's security and defence policy – and, more crucial still, its support is needed for reaching political agreement on the UN-brokered plan for the future of Cyprus.
Britain and the US – which wants an early start to EU negotiations for Turkey as part of its efforts to secure Ankara's support for possible war in Iraq – are hoping for agreement on Cyprus, Nato and EU membership, which are heavily interdependent.
In talks with Mr Straw yesterday Mr Erdogan appeared to be warming rapidly to the UN plan for Cyprus which would make the Greek and Turkish sectors autonomous within a light federal structure. But negotiations involving the Greek and Turkish Cypriots are expected to continue right up to the deadline at the end of next week.
One key human rights measure EU leaders are hoping Mr Erdogan will have pushed through before the summit is a retrial of five Kurdish politicians who were expelled from parliament in 1995 and jailed for 15 years after what is widely regarded as a mistrial.
Mr Straw insisted he was "not in the least complacent'' about Turkish human rights records but added: "Human rights have not always been perfect either in applicant states or in the past in a number of existing EU states.''
Supporters of Turkish EU entry believe that the negotiating process is the best guarantee that its new government will persist with far-reaching human rights reforms.
In London on Monday Paul Wolfowitz, the US Deputy Defence Secretary, said the continued exclusion of Turkey from the EU was "unthinkable''. Mr Wolfowitz was meeting Mr Straw in Ankara last night.
INDEPENDENT 04/12/2002