FRANCE: TALKS BETWEEN U.N. SECRETARY GENEAL KOFI ANNAN AND TURKISH AND CYPRIOT REPRESENTATIVES ON FUTURE OF CYPRUS BEGIN IN PARIS

Record ID: 223034

  • Title: FRANCE: TALKS BETWEEN U.N. SECRETARY GENEAL KOFI ANNAN AND TURKISH AND CYPRIOT REPRESENTATIVES ON FUTURE OF CYPRUS BEGIN IN PARIS
  • Date: 6th September 2002
  • Summary: (U3) PARIS, FRANCE (SEPTEMBER 6, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. VARIOUS EXTERIORS HOTEL BRISTOL (2 SHOTS) 0.10 2. SV: TURKISH CYPRIOT LEADER RAUF DENKTASH ARRIVING SURROUNDED BY BODY GUARDS 0.18 3. SV: (SOUNDBITE) (English) RAUF DENKTASH SAYING: "I just come to have a meeting with the Secretary General and then we'll talk. He knows what we are going to tell him: what we have been talking about for so long. We shall see."/ DENKTASH WALKING TO LIFT 1.02 4. SV: RAUL DENKTASH AND SECRETARY GENERAL KOFI ANNAN SHAKING HANDS 1.32 5. WS: EXTERIOR BRISTOL HOTEL 1.37 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 21st September 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PARIS, FRANCE
  • Country: France
  • Reuters ID: LVA6NE49JQB7Q3PNM3X6DMHQK9U7
  • Story Text: Talks between United Nations Secretary General Kofi
    Annan and Turkish and Cypriot representatives on the future of
    the divided island of Cyprus have started in Paris.


    United Nations Secretary general Kofi Annan has met
    with Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash at the start of
    talks on Cyprus being held at the Bristol Hotel in Paris on
    Friday (6 September). Later in the morning Annan will meet a
    Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides to discuss the Cyprus
    situation.

    The Secretary General will take Denktash and Clerides to
    task over the stalemate in their talks to reunite under one
    government the Mediterranean island that has been divided
    since 1974.

    Troubled Turkish politics and an EU membership deadline
    will loom over Annan's efforts to break the deadlock in the
    talks about the divided island. Sovereignty is a key sticking
    point.

    Greek Cypriots want the island tightly reunited under the
    internationally recognised government they control but
    Denktash wants a loose union of two largely independent
    states.

    Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 after a short-lived Greek
    Cypriot coup engineered by the military junta then in Athens.

    Turkey is the only country to recognise Denktash's
    self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

    Diplomats have said it's unlikely that Annan's latest
    push, speculated to take the form of defining a settlement
    framework, will emerge with concrete results before a Turkish
    election on November 3.

    The Turkish election was called after its coalition fell
    to pieces amid efforts to rebuild a shattered economy. The
    poll may lead to foot-dragging over Cyprus but an expected
    end-of-year deadline for the European Union to announce a date
    for the island's entry to the bloc should provide an urgent
    date for Denktash and Clerides to focus on.

    Turkey, bitter over the slow pace of its own efforts to
    join the EU, has said it may "annex" north Cyprus if the EU
    puts Cyprus on its list of members invited to join in 2004 or
    2005.

    But Turkey's arch-rival and EU member Greece says if
    Cyprus is not on the list, it will block all EU eastward
    expansion.

    Few expect Ankara to push Denktash for a Cyprus solution which
    could anger nationalists ahead of the November election.

    E.U. membership for Cyprus is the first deadline in
    decades to put both sides under sufficient pressure to make
    progress.

    The Secretary General is expected to submit a blueprint
    for a Cyprus settlement before the end of December, but
    sources close to the Cyprus delegation said no documents or
    concrete peace proposals are expected to result from the Paris
    talks on Friday (6 September).

    CAH/


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