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Cyprus' President Tassos Papadopoulos insisted Wednesday that peace talks on solving the Cyprus problem should be held only under the auspices of the United Nations.
Papadopoulos was responding to a reporter's question whether he would meet Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash next week after the failure of the just-concluded UN-brokered talks in The Hague.
Denktash has said that the withdrawal of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan from the Cyprus talks would "positively influence negotiations" between the two sides of the divided Mediterranean island.
Denktash also said he would send a letter to Papadopoulos outlining his proposed changes to Annan's third peace plan for reuniting the island, and they could meet next week if Papadopoulos accepted his proposal.
"The negotiations which we (Greek Cypriot side) hold (with the Turkish Cypriot side) are under the UN auspices only," Papadopoulos stressed.
Cyprus has been divided into the Greek Cypriot-controlled south and Turkish Cypriot-controlled north since 1974 when Turkey invaded and occupied the northern third of the island after a failed pro-Greece coup.
Annan invited Papadopoulos and Denktash to The Hague on Monday to discuss his peace plan which called for holding separate referendums in both sides on March 30, a proposal the Greek Cypriot side accepted.
But Denktash rejected the plan, leading to the failure of the talks, which were described by Annan as "the end of the road" for years of the intensive UN mediation efforts.
Annan said the Cyprus office of Alvaro de Soto, his special advisor on Cyprus, will now be shut down in the coming weeks.
(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2003)
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