Cypriot

The Turkish government has endorsed a rather aggressive rhetoric on foreign policy over the past five or so years, but one issue stands out as an exception: Cyprus.

The leaders of Turkish and Greek Cypriots will meet once again at an open-ended conference to be reconvened in the Swiss resort of Crans Montana on June 28 with the participation of three guarantor powers -Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom- in a bid to end decades-old division and to come to an agreement for a united new state on the island. 

Things have started coalescing even as confusion in the mind is intensifying. Two days of talks in Ankara and Istanbul among Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akıncı, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and other senior Turkish officials, including Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, have revealed that there will be no major change in positions in the Cyprus talks.

The Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders, Mustafa Akıncı and Nikos Anastasiades, will meet in Crans-Montana, Switzerland on June 28. The meeting comes after strong pressure from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Gueterres to hold another conference in order to bring the two parties closer to a breakthrough with the participation of three guarantor countries: Turkey, Greece and the United Kingdom.

At the front door of a five-star Ankara hotel, the ambassador of a not-so-big but influential Western country grabbed my arm with one hand and in a clear voice whispered into my ear: "You might be wrong… This time there might be a Cyprus deal. I want to believe so."

Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots are ready to take part in a summit in Geneva to work out a peace accord reunifying ethnically divided Cyprus as long as Greek Cypriots drop unacceptable "conditions," Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday.

Turkish foreign minister believes that a negotiated solution to the Cyprus issue is possible based on the compromise of both sides, saying the Turkish Cypriots showed their willingness for reconciliation, "now the ball is in the Greek Cypriot side's court."      
 

Recent news reports indicate that Greek Foreign Minister Nicos Kotzias sent a letter on April 7 to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in which he sharply criticized Espen Barth Eide, the U.N. chief's special adviser on Cyprus, accusing him, inter alia, of acting to promote the interests of the Turkish side.

Espen Barth Eide, the U.N. secretary-general's special Cyprus envoy, will soon be meeting the leaders of the two peoples of Cyprus, to explain that many years of United Nations-sponsored Cyprus talks may be leading to a humiliating failure, perhaps forcing an "embrace of the serpent."

Against the backdrop of Turkey's referendum on expanding presidential powers, talks aimed at reunifying ethnically divided Cyprus restarted Tuesday with rival leaders hoping to claw back diminished trust and lost momentum after a two-month halt.