A settlement in Cyprus still depends on shifting the same immovable objects

The UN's secretary-general, Kofi Annan, sounded doggedly hopeful after visiting the divided island of Cyprus last week. Its Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot leaders could still, he insisted, meet their self-imposed deadline of June 30th for agreeing to the main points of a deal that would remove the barbed wire that now separates their communities.

Mr Annan acknowledged that Glafcos Clerides and Rauf Denktash, the island's Greek and Turkish leaders, still had to jump some big hurdles—over methods of governing the island, security, territory and property. But if they succeed, lawyers would then fill in the details of an accord to be signed before the EU's grand summit at the end of this year, when the club's current members have to decide which countries should be let in, perhaps as soon as 2004. If a deal is struck, Cyprus will be in. If not, it is conceivable that the Greek-run part would join anyway. But many EU countries would rather it did not, because a bitter quarrel would then erupt with Turkey, a strategically vital NATO member and itself a candidate to join the EU in the long run.

Even before Mr Annan flew away, Mr Denktash, the Turkish-Cypriot leader, dampened the optimism. A deal would take several more months to reach, he said. Since January he and Mr Clerides have been meeting three times a week, with scarcely a break. Alvaro de Soto, a Peruvian diplomat who is Mr Annan's special envoy for Cyprus, sits in on the talks, but, under conditions set by the two leaders, he does not offer suggestions.

The negotiations seem stuck in the same old groove. Mr Denktash still wants the Greek-Cypriots to recognise his republic in the northern third of the island before he agrees to hand back territory and property. Mr Clerides insists Cyprus must be deemed a single state, though Greeks and Turks would run their own affairs.

Mr Clerides, though, may have shifted a bit. Speaking on CNN television just before Mr Annan arrived, he mooted the notion of two "cantons", a word Greek-Cypriots used to dislike for its echoes of Swiss-style confederation rather than the loose federation the Greeks would prefer. Mr Clerides also made it clear that a future central government would not have the right to intervene in the affairs of either community. Their judiciaries, for example, would remain separate.

It is possible, given more nudging by the Europeans and Americans, he could find a way of describing Mr Denktash's domain that could be understood, at least in the north, as recognition. Provided, of course, the Greeks get back their favourite northern villages: when the Turks invaded in 1974 after an abortive coup by Greeks that briefly threatened to unite the island with mainland Greece, some 38% of the land ended up under the Turks, who until then had made up less than a fifth of the population.

A deal is not out of the question. Mr Clerides, due to retire from politics when he steps down as president next February, wants to crown his career with reconciliation with the Turkish-Cypriots. Mr de Soto may start to get more involved in the discussions. The key question now is whether mainland Turkey will squeeze Mr Denktash into giving ground.That is less likely if the health of Turkey's leftish prime minister, Bulent Ecevit, continues to decline, resulting in political paralysis in Turkey.

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