A UN spokesman said the coming talks were very important for the direction of the Cyprus issue and Mr. Annan had asked Mr. Papadopoulos to come up with proposals, otherwise the nego¬tiations would have reached a dead end.
Mr. Annan was also said to be examining the Turkish-proposed action plan for a settlement, and to be discussing it with other auth¬orities.
The meeting comes as the Greek Cypriots put themselves on
a collision course with Turkey, saying they would report Ankara to the European Union for refusing to allow a Greek Cypriot-flagged ship to dock in the port of Mersin — less than a week after South Nicosia vowed to veto Turkey's accession to the bloc if it "failed to meet its commitments to Cyprus".
The cargo ship was denied permission on Wednesday night to unload 16 containers at Mersin. It anchored offshore before sailing back to Italy.
An aide to Mr Papadopoulos accused Turkey of having "the mentality of a pirate". Turkish commentators described the incident as a "crisis" deliberately set up by the Greek Cypriots to test Ankara and to win EU sympathies. |
