Financial Times Andreas Hadjipapas, Dan Dombey, Kerin Hope
The leaders of the Greek and Turkish communities in Cyprus are set to announce a fresh initiative to reunify the Mediterranean island following months of quiet diplomacy by the US aimed at achieving a broader reconciliation involving Israel, Turkey and Cyprus.
Nicos Anastasiades, the Greek Cypriot leader, and Dervis Eroglou, his Turkish Cypriot counterpart, will on Tuesday make a joint commitment to resuming negotiations “in a results-oriented manner” hoping to wrap up a peace settlement as soon as possible, according to the text of a joint declaration leaked to Cypriot media at the weekend.
The US intervention ended a five-month stalemate, typical of previous efforts to reinvigorate UN sponsored peace talks, over details of turning the ethnically divided island into a federation. This would be formed of two constituent states in which Greek and Turkish Cypriots would continue to run their own domestic affairs.
“The two sides will seek to create a positive atmosphere to ensure the talks succeed. They commit to avoiding blame games or other negative comments on the negotiations,” the statement said.
Relations between the two communities have been sour since 2004 when the Greek Cypriots rejected the Annan plan – named after the former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan – in a referendum. Mr Anastasiades was the only Greek Cypriot leader to back the plan. The result meant that the smaller Turkish Cypriot community living on the north of the island was blocked from EU membership, even though it backed reunification in a separate vote.
With the two biggest Greek Cypriot political parties backing the new initiative, there was optimism in Nicosia that an end to the island’s 40-year division could be within reach.
Recent discoveries of large offshore gas deposits between Cyprus and Israel that could be channelled to European markets by a pipeline through Turkey have fuelled hopes of a settlement.
