Cyprus reunification talks enter final phase

At the Cypriot reunification talks, United Nations Secretary General Koffi Annan (R) walks with delegation member UN special envoy to Cyprus Alvaro de Soto (L) at the Hotel Park of Burgenstock resort in Switzerland on Monday after their first joint meeting. The UN unveiled a revised Cyprus peace plan at the Cyprus negotiations here and Turkish officials hope to unite the island after 30 years. PHOTO: AFP

UN officials said they expected "intense consultations" involving the prime ministers of Greece and Turkey as well as the Cypriots before Wednesday's deadline to accept Annan's plan, his fourth in 16 months.

The plan is to be put to separate referenda in the Turkish and Greek parts of the Mediterranean island on April 20.

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Leaders of the two communities have already given Annan authority to "fill in the blanks" and impose a solution in areas of his plan on which they cannot agree.

But if either community rejects the proposals in the referenda next month, only the internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot south -- covering about two-thirds of the territory -- will join the EU.

Turkish diplomats and media welcomed Annan's proposals after he unveiled them in this Swiss ski resort on Monday, saying they largely met Turkey's political and security concerns.

Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 in response to a short-lived coup designed to unite the island with Greece under a military dictatorship.

Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced and many lost their homes. But since the invasion, the Greek sector has prospered economically, while the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has failed to win recognition, except by Ankara.

Annan's plan would allow Turkey to keep an unspecified number of troops on Cyprus. It would also impose quotas on the numbers of refugees resettling from one zone to another, so as to meet Turkish Cypriot fears of being swamped by their richer and more populous Greek Cypriot compatriots.

Greek Cypriots object that this would violate EU principles of the free movement of peoples and capital and the Greek press said Tuesday that Annan had given too much to Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots.