The purpose of the present UN talks in New York between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders is "to prepare the groundwork for comprehensive negotiations to begin", the foreign minister of the internationally unrecognised Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC), Mr Tahsin Ergruloglu, told The Irish Times in Nicosia recently.
He explained: "It has been our position for the past two years that negotiations need to be held on the basis of two states. In other words, state-to-state negotiations ... with neither side representing the other or the whole, or claiming it does."
However, even after the proximity talks have begun it remains unclear whether or not either side wants a settlement at this juncture. There has been a news blackout at the UN building in New York where the leaders are communicating through intermediaries, but it is clear the insistence of the Turkish side on separate statehood is the point on which the talks will stand or fall.
Asked if separate statehood was a precondition or an objective for the talks, Mr Ertugruloglu was emphatic. "The Greek Cypriots must recognise realities and stop living in a make-believe dream world," he said. But he was reluctant to describe recognition as a precondition.
To a large extent these talks have been foisted on the Cypriots from outside - by Athens, Ankara, Brussels and Washington. Taking particular issue with the role of the European Union, the minister said: "The international community is doing nothing other than harm to this island. It is preventing negotiations and the successful outcome of these negotiations."
There is a gigantic problem of perception, the Turkish Cypriots believe. So much so that their leader, Mr Rauf Denktash, has found it necessary to declare: "There is no Cypriot nation. There are two parts of two nations: Greek Cypriots call themselves Greeks; and we are from Turkey, settled here 400 years ago. No intermarriage. Religions different. Cultures different. Languages different."
In other words the Cyprus problem still revolves around the clash of two opposed imperialist tendencies: on the one hand enosis (union with Greece) arising from the Helenistic struggle against Ottoman rule; on the other hand taksim (separation or partition), a strategy aimed at preserving Turkey's presence on the island and maybe even expanding it by colonisation. While these movements pull in opposite directions, they have one effect in common: they repeatedly undermine Cypriot independence and inter communality.
"The Greek Cypriots say: `The Cyprus problem started in 1974. It is a problem of invasion. Take away the Turkish soldiers and the Cyprus problem is solved.' But we say the problem started in 1963 because they destroyed the partnership," Mr Denktash says.
In 1963-1964, when some 800 Turkish Cypriots are believed to have been killed in a two-month period, Ankara threatened to intervene as it claimed it was legally entitled to do under the partnership treaty. However, it came under intense US pressure not to do anything that might foment trouble with NATO partner Greece, trouble which the Soviet Union stood ready to exploit. At one stage in the conflict that followed, Turkish Cypriots claim their population was forced into enclaves comprising a mere 3 per cent of the island.
In the end it was the hardening of the movement for enosis, after the Colonels came to power in Athens, and the Sampson coup in Cyprus in 1974 that made Ankara's intervention inevitable. And for once, the world's eyes were turned elsewhere - on Watergate, the oil crisis, etc - and Turkey achieved its fait accompli.
Northern monuments to the 1974 intervention strike an almost Stalinist tone in their idealisation of militarism and martyrdom. The politicians' tones are somewhat similar. There is little mention of the other side's point of view, only minimal attempts to accommodate or balance.
It is hardly surprising they look on Nicosia's - and Ankara's - overtures to the EU with suspicion. After all, they are the real reasons behind the current talks between the two communities.
For a full interview with Mr Rauf Denktash see Irish Times website www.ireland.com