Nicos Anastasuades and Dervish Eroglu
THE SECOND phase of the latest bout of peace talks begins today, three months after the joint declaration was finalized. Since then there has been a so-called screening process, during which the two sides discussed the issues connected to the different chapters of the problem. It was a process that dragged on longer than would have been expected and failed to generate the momentum that would help the second phase.
On the contrary, on the Greek Cypriot side the screening processes generated disappointment and pessimism. President Anastasiades has been repeating that “a very big distance separates the two sides” and so has his foreign minister. It is also the standard line given, anonymously by members of the negotiating team to journalists. This has become the ‘new’ Cyprus problem slogan; it was repeated in a report by Cyprus News Agency, quoting “reliable sources” that were not identified.
The Turkish Cypriot side, meanwhile, has not expressed any concern about the “very big distance,” insisting that a settlement could be reached within months. This has been its slogan, since the start of the screening process, occasionally provoking a reaction from the Greek Cypriot side, countering that there was a very long way to go as a “very big distance” separated the positions of the two sides.
The “very big distance” should not have surprised anybody, some have argued, because at the beginning of any negotiation process, each side is inclined to start from an unrealistic position in order to test the other. How true this has been proving. Yesterday it was reported that the first issues to be discussed at the start of the second phase of the negotiations, would be property and the powers of the executive authority.
The Turkish Cypriot leader, Dervis Eroglu, was having none of it, claiming that issues relating to territory would be left last. This angered foreign minister Ioannis Kasoulides who pointed out that the Cyprus problem would be negotiated in its entirety and not in segments. Will there be a disagreement about the order in which issues would be discussed, when the negotiators meet today, or was Eroglu engaging in some grandstanding? After all these years of Cyprus problem theatrics, it is very difficult to know what the reality actually is.The protagonists have always preferred to play to their respective galleries rather than work constructively together in order to achieve a result.
Perhaps nobody wants a result and the very big distance would continue to separate the two sides, for the duration of the second phase of the talks. Perhaps the distance would be shortened during the third phase, if there is one.
Source: Cyprus Mail, 06.05.2014