Buergenstock, Switzerland, Mar 30: Turkish and Greek leaders, both buoyed by strong election mandates, meet today facing a three-day deadline to strike a peace deal uniting Cyprus for European Union membership on May 1.
Deep divisions and distrust remain from past bloodshed, but
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has taken personal charge of
talks with high stakes for the EU and NATO as well as the Greek
and Turkish Cypriots and their motherlands.
The United Nations has set Wednesday as the deadline for a
deal and Annan has a mandate to fill in any disputed gaps in a
UN peace plan if the sides fail to agree. The plan is then due
to go to a referendum on both sides of Cyprus on April 20.
Opinion polls show many Cypriots see economic attractions in
a united Cyprus going into the EU, but that each side is wary of
any deal that gives away too much to the other on issues such as
freedom of movement on the island and property ownership.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, set to join the talks
today after his party won local elections yesterday, is
working the phones to US President George W Bush and European
leaders to press his case on the decades old standoff.
Conservative Greek minister Costas Karamanlis, who earlier
this month ended a decade of socialist rule, is already in the
secluded snowy Swiss Alpine resort of Buergenstock where the two
sides are deadlocked despite six weeks of intense negotiation.
No deal at Buergenstock will mean only the internationally
recognised Greek Cypriot government in the south of the
mediterranean island joining the EU on May 1.
Bureau Report
