CYPRUS: Ailing Northern Cypriot leader Mr Rauf Denktash has informed UN Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan that he is prepared to enter talks on Mr Annan's plan to reunite divided Cyprus, the UN said yesterday.
"The letter was just received and it is being studied in depth, but it does appear from the letter that Mr Denktash is prepared to negotiate on the basis of the proposal," UN spokesman Mr Stéphane Dujarric told reporters.
Mr Annan asked Mr Denktash and Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides for "more substantive comments" by Saturday on his blueprint for unifying Cyprus, Mr Dujarric said.
Cyprus has been split since a 1974 Turkish invasion after a brief Greek Cypriot coup engineered by the military then ruling Greece, and the division remains a source of tension between NATO allies and longtime foes Greece and Turkey.
"The clock is obviously ticking. We'd like to move ahead," Mr Dujarric said.
"I hope that both sides realise, and I think both sides do realise, that this is a historic opportunity to solve a long-standing problem," US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell told reporters after talks at the State Department with Greek Foreign Minister Mr George Papandreou.
The UN is pressing hard for swift talks on the 140-page plan, refusing to give up hope of a settlement before the December 12th deadline of the EU summit in Copenhagen at which the EU is expected to invite 10 states, including Cyprus, to join in 2004.
Mr Annan had agreement from the Greek Cypriot side to go ahead with talks but had been awaiting word from Mr Denktash, who has been confined to a New York hospital, recuperating from two rounds of heart surgery and a subsequent infection.
Mr Denktash had initially insisted he needed to go home for consultations before he could give Mr Annan a thumbs-up.
But he told Turkey's NTV television by telephone earlier yesterday that the UN request for comments on the plan by Saturday was positive.
"When both sides put everything they disagree with in the middle it will become self-evident whether this document can be negotiated or not," Mr Denktash said. "For this to be a foundation for negotiations, the elements we don't want must be negotiated. But inside the plan, beginning with territor y . . . I think there are many elements that must be changed, but we will negotiate these." The UN special envoy to Cyprus, Mr Alvaro de Soto, was in Ankara yesterday for talks with Turkish diplomats.
Mr Annan's plan calls for reunification of Cypriot Greeks and Turks under a common government run by a six-member executive council and rotating presidency.
It proposes territorial handovers by the Turkish Cypriots to reduce their "component state" area to 28.5 per cent of Cyprus, as opposed to 36 per cent today.
The arrangement would allow 85,000 of the 162,000 Greek Cypriot refugees to return to their homes, and lead to the displacement of 42,000 Turkish Cypriots.
"On the issue of territory no one could accept this, nothing like this can happen," Mr Denktash said.
But thousands of Turkish Cypriots rallied in Nicosia to urge their leaders to grasp the opportunity presented by the plan.