Roundup: Greek Cypriots move to defuse crisis in peace process

Greek Cypriots on Friday set in motion the process for defusing a crisis that has threatened to derail the peace negotiations just as the United Nations were preparing their final stage.

Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci said on Friday that he walked out of a meeting with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades on Thursday, saying that it "was devoid of good manners."

He accused Anastasiades of failing to give even the slightest notion that he would take action to offset a decision by the all-Greek Cypriot parliament to commemorate the anniversary of a 1950 referendum in which the Greek community voted for "enosis" or union with Greece.

Anastasiades has stated that it was approved only by minority parties which aim at preventing a Cyprus solution, and that the two largest parties did not approve it.

"I will allow nobody to dispute my intention and that of the Greek Cypriot community to reach a federal solution on the terms agreed with Turkish Cypriots," Anastasiades has said.

The parliamentary group of the ruling DISY party tabled a bill that would give absolute authority to the Ministry of Education to decide, in consultation with the parliamentary education committee, which anniversaries would be the subject of commemoration in school classes.

This bill is designed to negate a last-minute addition by an extremist party to an educational reforms law that angered the Turkish Cypriot community.

The addition was passed only by the votes of small parties opposed to the peace negotiations after the ruling DISY party abstained and the left-wing AKEL party voted against.

Parliamentary sources said they expect the proposed bill to be passed by the votes of DISY and AKEL, which control 34 votes in the 56-seat chamber

The out of the blue disruption of the negotiations was termed by analysts as a hiccup crisis.

Anastasiades said on Friday that he is sincerely committed to a federal solution and urged Akinci to join him at a scheduled negotiating session on Thursday if he feels likewise.

Akinci was non-committal, saying that the will assess the situation and decide depending on developments.

Sources said a decision will be made on Monday when Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will visit the occupied part of Cyprus for talks with Akinci.

The visit had been scheduled before but Akinci has said it would be an opportunity to make a comprehensive review of the state of affairs.

Though the United Nations has insisted that the negotiations are still on, Greek Cypriot officials made no secret of their concerns after Cavusoglu said during a visit in Cologne, Germany, on Thursday that "these negotiations cannot continue" and that Turkey would do "what it has to do".

Moderate politicians and people on both sides have mobilized to avert a failure of the negotiations, warning on social sites that the extremist among the two communities would succeed in preventing a peace solution that seemed to be so close just weeks ago. Endit