Pascoe optimistic ahead of leaders’ meeting
By Jean Christou
THE TWO leaders in Cyprus will probably meet next week but UN Undersecretary General Lynn Pascoe, who left the island yesterday, said ultimately it would be up to them.
President Demetris Christofias did indicate yesterday that he and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat would meet before the end of the month where the basis of new negotiations would be redefined, he said.
Pascoe told a news conference yesterday morning that advisers to the two leaders, George Iacovou and Ozdil Nami would be meeting today but he did not want to predict the outcome with any certainty on his part.
“They will be setting the date for the next meeting of the two leaders, which should come very soon, hopefully next week, schedules permitting and getting things worked out, and I think that is going to happen,” Pascoe said.
“I think that as nearly as I can tell, of course there are going to be bumps in the road and there will be ups and downs. An issue that has been around this long is inevitably going to have problems arise, but my strong sense is that the overall direction is a very positive one.
“I remain quite optimistic that the process is moving forward and I think that we will get involved in substantive talks in the not too distant future.”
Pascoe also made an appeal against pessimism, focusing too much on the past, and nitpicking about the wording in various documents on the Cyprus issue.
“The thing that is most amazing to me is that everyone has always a citation. The UN body of work sometimes reminds me a little bit of the Bible: you can reach out and find a citation to prove any point you want to prove and there are whole legions of people who are paid full-time to go in and dig out every little citation they can to prove that they are right and the other side is wrong,” said Pascoe.
“By and large that is not a very productive approach. I think it is very important that we not be spending all of our time living in the past, we are talking about building the future. I think this should be said any time you get quoted to you somebody saying ‘oh yeah, look what was said 20 or 15 years ago’.
“The question that you should always ask that official is: ‘what are you doing about the future?’, because that is what counts.”
The UN envoy said there would always be at least ten reasons why something will not work to every one reason why it will, and despite the doubters, the working groups and technical committees were doing very well.
“People say ‘what about Ankara?’, ‘what about this, what about that?’ I mean, there is always reason out there to be pessimistic and frankly there is justification for it… For the number of years, the numbers of efforts and the number of programmes [that have started and failed], it is not surprising that people would be,” Pascoe said.
He said however that he had several extensive discussions with the Turkish government, as well as the Greek government, the EU and others involved in the issue and he detected a very strong desire to move forward in all of those capitals. He added the feeling was that this time it could be done, that he was optimistic, and impressed with the two leaders.
“We should not be pessimistic [about] a process if we want it to work,” Pascoe said. “Because if they [Cypriot citizens] don’t believe we are going to make it, we won’t make it”.
He did say however he was “quite struck” by the leaders’ “very strong dedication and intention” to make the process work, and that he would he returning periodically to help.
Christofias said yesterday he would ask Talat to help redefine the basis on which the Cyprus issue would be solved because he thought the Turkish Cypriot leader had overreacted to the British memorandum and the UN resolution.
“It is clear that in a new meeting, my effort will be to clearly redefine the basis on which the Cyprus problem will be solved,” he said. “I see no reason for Mr Talat to react because we are talking about a state with a single sovereignty, citizenship and international personality. This will be clarified so that we have the same prospect before us, speaking the same language.”
The Turkish Cypriot side said yesterday provided that Christofias was committed to the March 21 agreement, there was no obstacle to the immediate resumption of negotiations.
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