United Nations envoy Alvaro de Soto said Friday that the UN will not modify its proposals for solving the Cyprus conflict even though Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash has rejected them.
Speaking after a meeting with Foreign Minister Ismail Cem, the envoy told reporters that "there is no reason" to change the proposals, conveyed verbally to the two Cypriot parties on November 8 by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Anatolia news agency said.
Denktash dismissed the proposals as contrary to Turkish-Cypriot interests and said he would boycott the next round of UN-sponsored talks, scheduled for January, if "our parameters are not accepted."
Turkey, the only country to recognize Denktash's breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), has given him its full support in defiance of European Union appeals for Ankara to back the negotiation process.
Denktash and Ankara maintain that the only way to reunify Cyprus is to acknowledge the TRNC and establish a two-state confederation between it and Greek-Cyprus -- a stand rejected by the international community.
But De Soto said that Annan was still optimistic that the talks would go ahead.
"I do not see Denktash's announcement as a withdrawal from the talks," he said, adding that both Denktash and his Greek Cypriot counterpart Glafcos Clerides had not yet officially responded to Annan's invitation.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey occupied the northern third of the island in response to an Athens-engineered coup in Nicosia seeking to unite the island with Greece.
The Cyprus conflict is also in the heart of a recent spat between Turkey and the European Union over conditions for Turkey's membership to the bloc.
Turkey has threatened to "revise" relations with the EU if its accession process is tied to a settlement of Cyprus' division and territorial disputes with EU member Greece.
De Soto, who flew to Ankara from Athens, was scheduled to have talks with the two Turkish Cypriot leaders on the island next week after wrapping up his meeting with Turkish officials here Saturday -- ANKARA (AFP)
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