Cyprus ice-breaker gets lukewarm response

UN head Kofi Annan unveiled a revised Cyprus peace plan yesterday to "break the ice" in stalled unification talks, but his proposals ran into a lukewarm response.

Secretary-General Annan's new blueprint, presented at high-pressure talks at the Swiss Alpine resort of Buergenstock, would give Greek Cypriots more land in line with earlier proposals but allow fewer to return to homes they fled from in the Turkish Cypriot-controlled north in 1974.

"As the snowfall subsided, the fog lifted and the sun appeared in Buergenstock," Mr Annan told the host of negotiators during a formal ceremony at the snowy resort of Buergenstock on the shores of Lake Lucerne.

Mr Annan has asked the parties for initial responses by this morning and said tomorrow would be the last negotiating day.

It will be a mammoth task for the Greek, Turkish, Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot officials involved in ploughing through 9,000 pages of document.

"The Prime Minister said the 48 hours are an asphyxiating timetable," a Greek diplomatic source said, quoting Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, who was attending the talks along with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.

Mr Erdogan said Turkey could not budge on the so-called issue of primary law or a treaty it wanted to give Turkish Cypriots permanent exemption from EU law on matters like travel and right to property.

Turkish Cypriots fear their poorer part of the island would otherwise be overrun by wealthier Greek Cypriots and would-be Greek settlers and lose its "Turkish character".

Mr Erdogan and Mr Karamanlis called, or received calls, from world leaders like President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder who all urged the pair to show flexibility.

Submission of the revised plan was the latest act in a long drama to unite the Mediterranean island so both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots could join the European Union on May 1.

Predictably, both sides found pluses and minuses in their first reading of Mr Annan's new ideas.

"There is a cautious optimism," a Turkish diplomat involved in the talks said.

Greek and Greek Cypriot diplomats were more muted. "I cannot give a black and white answer," a Greek Cypriot diplomat said. "The Turkish Cypriots seem to have got a lot of what they wanted."

Greek diplomats said they shared Greek Cypriots concerns. "There are problematic elements in the text," one said. Mr Annan has a mandate to fill in any disputed gaps if the sides fail to agree.

No deal at Buergenstock would still send the plan directly on to separate referendums on both sides of the island on April 20. If it is not approved by one or the other side, only the internationally recognised Greek Cypriot government in the south would join the EU on May 1.

This could cement the island's partition and harm Turkey's own hopes of becoming the first Muslim state to join the EU.

Sources said revisions to a blueprint Mr Annan first presented more than a year ago included a reduction in the number of Greek Cypriots allowed to settle in the Turkish part of northern Cyprus. It kept earlier proposals that the Turkish Cypriots surrender some seven per cent of territory they now control, down to 29 per cent.