I will do it my way!

By Chris Elliott

I will do it “My Way” is a well-known lyric and so it seems, is the ongoing mantra of  the Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades insisting that Greek Cypriots will not meet with the Turkish Cypriots to negotiate a settlement after 50 wasted years and much communal strife and discord unless he calls the tune….

It would seem that the best efforts of the United Nations, Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots in encouraging the Republic of Cyprus to meet and pick up the pieces of the broken Annan Plan and negotiate a final settlement are met with the constant rebuffs and excuses and insistance that there will be no start to negotiations without preconditions being agreed.

So what does negotiation mean?  According to Wikipedia, it means the following :

“Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties, intended to reach an understanding, resolve point of difference, or gain advantage in outcome of dialogue, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, to craft outcomes to satisfy various interests of two people/parties involved in negotiation process. Negotiation is a process where each party involved in negotiating tries to gain an advantage for themselves by the end of the process. Negotiation is intended to aim at compromise.”

Could it be there is no real wish to negotiate by Cyprus as it holds all of the bargaining cards after 50 wasted years and has the upper hand after becoming a member of the EU, after rejecting the Annan Plan and now has less chance of regaining lost causes and desires. Perhaps Mr Anastasiades has bitten off more than he can chew and will he continue to do it, his way?

Soon 2014 will arrive but will it herald a final settlement to the Cyprus problem even if the world has to reappraise and accept that a settlement can only be achieved if both parties are willing to compromise and if they are not, they should be allowed to make their own futures side by side as we have seen elsewhere in the world.

The following report in Trend AZ may give a clearer indication of what’s behind the lead-up to the negotiations, or not:

Greek Cyprus: No start to negotiations without preconditions – Trend.Az.