US ‘positive’ towards Erhurman’s four points for Cyprus negotiations

The United States’ government is “positive” towards Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman’s four stipulations which he says must be met for negotiations on the Cyprus problem to recommence in earnest, according to reports on Friday.

Veteran journalist Ulas Baris wrote that Erhurman’s office received a telephone call from “one of the highest-ranking representatives of the US state department” last month, and that the official said they wished to meet Erhurman.

He also reported that the official had told Erhurman’s office, “we appreciate your four-point methodology” and “we find it positive”.

Those four points, sometimes referred to as “preconditions” – a term Erhurman resents – foresee that the Greek Cypriot side accept political equality, time-limit negotiations, and preserve all past agreements, and that the UN guarantee that embargoes placed on the Turkish Cypriots be lifted if the Greek Cypriot side leaves the negotiating table again.

President Nikos Christodoulides has thus far appeared reluctant to acquiesce to those four points, however, and said after Wednesday’s tripartite meeting with Erhurman and United Nations envoy Maria Angela Holguin that “I answered this when I went there, about those four specific points”.

He had responded at the tripartite by presenting his own five-point package of proposals, which included that “the basis for a solution to the Cyprus problem” be “reaffirmed”, and that the UN should prepare a list of convergences found between the two sides up to the point at which negotiations collapsed in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana in 2017.

His third proposal was that a new enlarged meeting be convened, while the fourth was that at that meeting, the resumption of talks based on the list of convergences found be announced.

The fifth and final proposal was that four crossing points, in the uninhabited Turkish Cypriot enclave of Kokkina, in the village of Louroujina, between Nicosia and Larnaca, in the eastern Nicosia suburb of Mia Milia, and a through road between the town of Athienou and the southeastern Nicosia suburb of Aglandjia, be opened after the next enlarged meeting.

Erhurman had said on Wednesday of Christodoulides’ five-point proposal that it “contained no new elements” and “reiterated topics which had been raised in various forms before”.

He then spoke about his own four points, saying that while Christodoulides had accepted the first, political equality, “in principle”, more needs to be done for the matter to be consider closed.

“A clear stance has not been taken on fundamental elements such as effective participation and a rotating presidency. The structure in which Turkish Cypriots could never elect a head of state without a rotating presidency is unacceptable,” he said.

Earlier this month, Erhurman had responded to reports that US President Donald Trump may personally intervene on the Cyprus problem by saying that those reports constituted nothing more than “a rumour”.

“We have not received anything officially. I do not think these statements very accurate,” he said, though he did note that “in the current conjuncture, [the Cyprus problem] has become even more international”.

The comment comes after President Nikos Christodoulides had said in October last year that he had discussed the Cyprus problem with Trump on the sidelines of the summit on the future of Gaza in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh.

Asked what was discussed between him and Trump, he replied that “all I can say is that the issue discussed was the Cyprus issue”.