TURKISH CYPRIOT LEADER AGAINST OPENING OF PORTS AND AIRPORTS TO GREEK CYPRUS: ZAMAN
News from Armenia – NEWS.am
12:25 / 12/11/2009
"Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat has said he is opposed to
Turkey unilaterally opening its ports and airports to Greek Cyprus
because Greek Cypriots would think they could gain concessions
without agreeing to a peace settlement in Cyprus," Turkish Zaman daily
reports. "This is very dangerous. Opening of ports and airports should
be kept to either a solution or to lifting the isolation of Turkish
Cypriots simultaneously," Talat said.
"The EU has repeatedly asked Turkey to open its ports and airports to
traffic from Greek Cyprus. EU foreign ministers were meeting yesterday
in Brussels to discuss, among other things, Turkey’s refusal to comply
with the EU demand. Talat, who had talks with British Premier Gordon
Brown during his stay in London, said, "I believe that now we have a
good chance because (Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris) Christofias wants
a solution. Turkish troops will withdraw from Turkish Cyprus when a
lasting solution was found in the island. If the Annan Plan had been
accepted, troop withdrawal would have taken place," the source reads.
Cyprus was occupied by Turkish troops’ intervention in 1974. The Annan
Plan was a United Nation proposal to settle the Cyprus dispute of
the divided island nation of Cyprus as the United Cyprus Republic. It
incorporated the following elements:
A collective Presidential Council, made up of six voting members,
allocated according to population (4 Greek Cypriots and 2 Turkish
Cypriots).A President and Vice President, chosen by the Presidential
Council from among its members, one from each community, to alternate
in their functions every 20 months during the council’s five-year term
of office. A bicameral legislature: senate with 48 members, divided
24:24 between the two communities and Chamber of Deputies with 48
members, divided in proportion to the two communities’ populations
(with no fewer than 12 for the smaller community). A Supreme Court
composed of equal numbers of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot judges,
plus three foreign judges; to be appointed by the Presidential Council.