December 6, 2000
Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Dentash rejected Wednesday an appeal by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to cooperate with the 35-year-old UN force on Cyprus, whose mandate comes up for renewal next week. "It is impossible for us to work with the peacekeepers, who are operating only with the approval of the Greek Cypriot side," Denktash told journalists.
In his six-monthly report to the Security Council on the situation on Cyprus, Annan recommended that the force of 1,210 peacekeepers known as UNFICYP be extended for six months from December 15 to June 15, 2001. But he said that "the conditions under which UNFICYP operates have become more difficult, owing to restrictions imposed on it by the Turkish Cypriot authorities and the Turkish forces."
UNFICYP was sent to Cyprus in March 1964 after inter-communal riots. It remained after Turkish forces invaded and occupied the north of the island in 1974, following a short-lived coup by Greek Cypriot extremists seeking to unify Cyprus with Greece under a military dictatorship in Athens.
On June 29 Denktash slapped restrictions on UNFICYP's operations in the north because the Security Council made no reference to his self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
For example, Annan said, what had previously been a 20-minute drive from one sector headquarters at Famagusta, in northern Cyprus, to the nearest UN post in the buffer zone now involved a four-hour detour through Nicosia. Annan also underlined a shortfall of 22.5 million dollars in funding for the force and appealed to member states to pay their assessments promptly and in full. "I continue to consider the presence of UNFICYP essential for the maintenance of the ceasefire on the island," he wrote.
Denktash said UNFICYP's mandate would have to change, adding that it could operate normally if it was accepted that it works "for the good of Turkish Cypriots and with the accord of the TRNC".
On Monday, Denktash said UN-brokered indirect talks with Greek Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides, which began in December 1999, were over and called for negotiations based on dialogue between two equal states. The next round is scheduled for late January 2001 in Geneva.
"I don't think his decision of yesterday is final," visiting UN envoy Alvaro de Soto told a press conference in Nicosia Tuesday. He said the framework of the talks would remain as outlined last year by Annan. The invitation stated the two parties represented their respective communities and nothing more. "I can't see any variations to these parameters," De Soto said. The Peruvian diplomat said he thought the process was very much alive despite Denktash's premature obituary for the latest peace initiative.
