NEVER LET the facts get in the way of some good political spin seemed to be the motto adopted after Wednesday’s three-hour meeting between President Tassos Papadopoulos and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat
The blame game was in full swing from the minute both leaders returned to their respective sides after a failed meeting that may very well have been the kiss of death for the July 8, 2006 process.
Then again the agreement, brokered by UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari, never really came to life because 14 months and 50 meetings later, senior aides from the two sides had failed to even decide what the proposed committees would discuss.
Papadopoulos took the first swipe on Wednesday night by criticising Talat because he asked for time limits on the discussions so they could be speeded up, a demand that constitutes the polar opposite of what the Greek Cypriot side wants.
It believes setting time limits could lead to not preparing the ground properly for comprehensive negotiations.
Talat counter-accused Papadopoulos of not wanting a solution, because no time limits meant the process could go on indefinitely.
Both have a point. The Annan plan in its last stages was a rush job to coincide with EU membership, so timeframes can backfire. But Turkish Cypriot fears that the process could be used to make the talks go on forever are not unfounded either.
Papadopoulos however went a step further, accusing Talat of deviating from the July 8 agreement while he himself wished to stick “to the letter” of the agreement. He even had the opposition parties convinced that Wednesday’s failure was Talat’s fault.
Of course the Turkish Cypriot side said the opposite, arguing that the current situation is proof that the Greek Cypriot policy of no timetables has already failed because not even the terms of reference for the committees was agreed in the space of 14 months.
To separate the spin from the truth it is necessary to revisit the July 8 agreement and the Gambari letter of November 2006 because people have short memories and most facts presented by politicians tend to consist of wheat grains in a sea of chaff.
Firstly, under the July 8 deal, both leaders agreed not to engage in the “blame game”.
Those words were used specifically.
As one EU diplomat put it: “The very people who are saying they want the implementation of the agreement to the letter are the ones going hammer and tongs at the blame game.”
Secondly, there are several time limits specified in the agreement. One relates to the
submission of topics for the proposed committees by July 31, 2006. This was adhered to… barely.
The agreement also calls for a “stocktaking meeting” between the two leaders by March 2007. This never happened.
Thirdly – and the real kicker – is that Gambari’s letter to the two leaders four months later said the second phase would commence with the leaders meeting where they “may also wish to establish an indicative timeframe within which it would proceed”.
They could then meet every four weeks, he said.
So although timeframes are not specifically mandatory under the Gambari process, they are not excluded either.
The situation might have been better served for the President to simply say he and Talat disagreed about the issue of time limits rather than to accuse the Turkish Cypriot leader of the far more serious charge of deviating from the agreement when it clearly allows the setting of time tables by mutual consent.
Papadopoulos also scored another point off Talat Thursday, “revealing” that the Turkish Cypriot leader had refused an invite to meet again tomorrow. But a fly on the wall at Wednesday’s meeting said it didn't transpire quite like that.
“When Talat realised they were at a dead end and understood that a new meeting was for internal consumption on the Greek Cypriot side, he asked what would be the point of them coming together again after only four days and if they envisaged anything other than other than the possibility of creating a worse situation,” said the source.
Ironically it was Papadopoulos who spent the past year avoiding meetings with Talat, saying there was nothing to discuss. It was only when coalition partner AKEL quit the government in July this year that he issued the invitation to Talat to meet, even though nothing had yet been accomplished under the Gambari agreement.
The outcome of Wednesday’s meeting was that the leaders merely agreed to stay in touch via the UN. No meeting between their two aides has been fixed and by all accounts there are no plans for them to resume their attempts to form any committees.
Sources close to Talat, when asked whose ball the court was in, said: “The ball is not in anyone’s court – it’s out of the court”. The source added: “I can’t say it [the agreement] is dead but I can’t say it’s alive.”
Whether the July 8 agreement will now join the Annan plan “on the autopsy table” to use a quote from the former government spokesman, will likely depend on the outcome of the presidential elections in February.
This is the general feeling on both sides and among the international community, some of whom feel the July 8 agreement has lost all credibility.
Of course with the elections coming, it cannot be ruled out that Papadopoulos will issue another invite to Talat before February, and the Turkish Cypriot leader says he is willing to respond positively to such a meeting.
The whole fiasco has in fact left the international community very disappointed with diplomats blaming both sides for the deadlock. They say that over the past year each side has avoided moving forward for different reasons such as the elections in Turkey, and now the upcoming presidential elections on the Greek Cypriot side.
“We are extremely fed up,” said the EU diplomat. “We thought maybe we would get a little more than we did. After 14 months, frankly it’s pathetic and sends an extremely negative signal.”
“We would like to see more honesty in the debate because it's clear that people are saying one thing and meaning another. Meetings are all well and good but if they don't deliver any progress they can be worse than a waste of time.”
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