Cyprus-Forum.com

[brother]

Gosh alasya i couldn't have put that any better, nice one.

[Saint Jimmy]

yes but these were legal experts and people who did not necessarily have anything to gain from depriving the G/C of their inheritance. this idea that all the nations of the World set out to conspire against you, is a load of rubbish that Papadopoulos is telling you

Very true. Nobody is out to get us.

[MicAtCyp]

this idea that all the nations of the World set out to conspire against you, is a load of rubbish that Papadopoulos is telling you to cover up his own murky agenda.

Alasya I happened to have read the Anan Plan and scrutinised on each and every detail of it. I did not wait Papadopoulos to tell me his opinion. If you are refering to his speach on TV, I personally learned nothing of it. My personal opinion is that he missed the most important points.

The Anan Plan is contradictory on almost every issue.You say that more than a 1000 experts worked to prepare it. First of all do you know the Anan Plan is only 182 pages*? Do you know the majority of those pages contain legal language of lower level than that of a first year law student? If yes then you may beleive it was prepared "by 1000 experts" at your own peril . The fact is that the Anan Plan was prepared by a small team headed by Mr. Didier Pfirter, the Legal Advisor to Mr. Alvaro de Soto, with some interference from Lord Hannay and others. 11 major and of shaking important issues were introduced the last minute by Anan to satisfy Turkey herself e.g the matter of EU primary law, the rejection of the Cypriots to apply to EU courts, the re-direction of all claims at the EU Vs Turkey on the shoulders of the new state etc etc.

Now if you ask me to discuss the Anan Pln in detail with you I will frankly tell you I don't want to. I did it a hundred times so far, I am very tired of it, and furthermore I don't think it will serve any purpose. Of course you are free to discuss it with other members of the forum.

What I want to say at this moment is that Papadopoulos was elected with a suprisingly high percentage from the very first round [among 4(?) candidates] just because people knew who he was and they wanted someone to save them from the Anan Plan brought previously by Clerides.
It is wrong to beleive that Papadopoulos carried away the GCs, and it is wrong to beleive anyone else could pass the Anan Plan among the GC population. I suggest from now on you concentrate on what the GCs really want and not what their leaders say.

· * The other 20K pages are just a copy paste of the laws of the RoC (by 99%) and the rest some agreements the northern regime had signed.Turkey did not even bother for them knowing the NO from the GCs was secured from the main Plan.

PS. Good luck with your steady affair.

[Alexandros Lordos]

What surprises me is that every proposal for a complete solution in this forum, either coming from a TC or a GC, is better than the Anan Plan. Whats most surprising it comes from a single person without even be discussed with the other side. Obviously after it is discussed it becomes even better.

So I wonder, how the hell, did we end up to that monstrosity called Anan Plan?

MicAtCyp,

personally, I am not at all surprised that the Annan Plan had so many weaknesses. If we just recall that one of the two negotiating parties (ie Denktash) was totally against Federation throughout the process of negotiations, while the other negotiating party (ie Clerides) was out of touch from his people's needs, and then again if we also recall that Turkey, for most of the negotiating period, was ruled by the person who thought he had solved the problem in 1974 (Ecevit), while in Greece we had a government which was willing to tolerate almost any Cyprus solution so long as its own relations with Turkey were normalised, and if we also recall that De Soto had daily "tripartite meetings" with the British and the Americans throughout the negotiations (therefore destroying the basic UN premise of impartiality) ...

So, no, the Annan Plan could not have been any better than it actually was, given the process that led up to it ...


Alasya,

MicAtCyp has a point here ... GCs have not been misled into voting No, it was a very conscious and very personal decision. Just think that even amongst the party of ex-president Clerides - who strongly favored the Annan Plan - the Yes vote was no more than 35 - 40% ...

Neither is it true that the GCs voted No because they did not want to share power with TCs. I refer you to my study - if you have not already seen it - which shows that most GCs were in fact willing to accept the constitutional provisions in the Annan Plan regarding power-sharing.

My sense, over the last few months, is that almost all TCs, even the most progressive, have been unwilling to listen carefully and understand the problems which led the GCs into voting No. Everyone just assumed that our No was a stupid mistake, but in fact there were very specific reasons behind it. I won't go into them now, but you can check out the thread "Annan Plan Vs 1960 Constitution" for a thorough analysis ...

Have a nice day

[MicAtCyp]

Alexandre,
I am not so sure Clerides "was out of touch from his people's needs". And lets suppose he was, how about his so many associates i. e Markides, Papapetrou, Vassiliou, Anastasiades etc etc. Were they all out of touch? ?
I also suspect they convinced Papadopoulos to proceed into playing their usual poker game "that always won" i. e they thought Turkey was bluffing and would reject the Plan.

While for a moment your post about the impartiality of the UN almost convinced me, how do you explain the satisfaction of the 11 extremely cruicial Turkish demands at the very last minute, and the satisfaction of none of our demands?
How do you explain the fact that we don't want De - Soto any more? Even Politis newspaper implied that Verhoigens 180 degree change cannot be explained otherwise than - you know - heavy lubrication.

To set it clear Alexandre: I beleive that cast of our Politicians were clearly sold. I beleive De Soto, Pfirter, Verhoigen and perhaps Anan himself were heavily lubricated.

[Saint Jimmy]

I also suspect they convinced Papadopoulos to proceed into playing their usual poker game "that always won" i. e they thought Turkey was bluffing and would reject the Plan.

Who is this sentence referring to, if you don't mind my asking?

While for a moment your post about the impartiality of the UN almost convinced me, how do you explain the satisfaction of the 11 extremely cruicial Turkish demands at the very last minute, and the satisfaction of none of our demands?
How do you explain the fact that we don't want De - Soto any more? Even Politis newspaper implied that Verhoigens 180 degree change cannot be explained otherwise than - you know - heavy lubrication.

I think the Secretary General himself has answered these questions (at least the first one), in his report to the Security Council... He claims that the GC side never prioritized its demands, and tried to filibuster its way out of the talks, forcing them to collapse, in a form of 'panic' reaction, after they realized that Turkey was serious about going through with the talks. In essence, we didn't really tell them what we wanted (or, better still, we did tell them everything we wanted, but not which we wanted the most), so we didn't get anything! But, I guess the closing point of your post is answer enough for this whole paragraph.

To set it clear Alexandre: I beleive that cast of our Politicians were clearly sold. I beleive De Soto, Pfirter, Verhoigen and perhaps Anan himself were heavily lubricated.

Whoa! Is that going too far? I mean, I can't say you are wrong (or right, for that matter), but I think this stance is rather bold...? I just can't get myself to stomach it...

[erolz]

To set it clear Alexandre: I beleive that cast of our Politicians were clearly sold. I beleive De Soto, Pfirter, Verhoigen and perhaps Anan himself were heavily lubricated.

Are you suggesting these people (your politicans and the EU and UN people you mention) were paid money (by whom?) to purposely favour the TC community in the Annan Plan?

[Alexandros Lordos]

While for a moment your post about the impartiality of the UN almost convinced me

MicAtCyp,

actually what I said was that the UN was not impartial

De Soto was holding regular meetings with Haney and the American Special Representative (I can't remember his name now), throughout the course of the negotiations, even though in principle "they were not supposed to influence his decisions, but were only there to help" ... (no comment...)

In this way, through Haney the british views on security prevailed (which ofcourse strongly favor the status quo), while through the Americans Turkey got an inordinate level of influence in the proceedings.

Now, concerning "lubrication" ... I don't know, MicAtCyp, to be honest with you this theory sounds to me a little far fetched

[Saint Jimmy]

the American Special Representative (I can't remember his name now)

Would that be Thomas Weston? I've met the guy, he talked to us about the situation on the Cyprus issue and its current dynamics, and I thought he was a real prick (excuse my French). Of course, the fact that this happened after the referendum might have something to do with it Seriously, though, the way he talked about our President was not flattering... And it was really surprising, cuz you'd expect diplomats to refrain from putting the blame directly on anyone, especially when he's talking to a group of students from both communities... It was bizarre

[-mikkie2-]

Alexandre,

I think that what perhaps MicAtCyp is refering to is that the US and UK probably gave strong assurances that the GC side was ready to accept any plan! I very much doubt there was any bribing going. I think you have to put it in context for the period.

Bush was having a disaster in Iraq, he was up for re-election, Cyprus was about to be an EU member etc..

I personally believe that the failure of the Annan plan lies squarely with the incompetent handling of the whole process by the UN and their complete misjudgement of Papadopoulos.