The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Kofi Annan, arrives in Cyprus today determined to conclude an agreement to reunite the island after 29 years of bitter and wasteful division.
The omens are less than propitious and Mr Annan has little time to spare. He has set a deadline of Friday because the agreement will then have to be ratified by referendum in time for the whole island to sign its treaty of accession to the European Union on April 16th.
If a deal cannot be reached, the EU is committed to extending membership to the Greek sector alone. This would be a move of enormous significance for the island in that the already prosperous Greek area would benefit greatly from membership while the economically-depressed and isolated Turkish Cypriots would fall even further behind.
The Turkish-Cypriots are mindful of the risk and have put pressure on their president, Mr Rauf Denktash, to agree to UN proposals for reunion. The proposals include a federal parliament and a central government within which the Turkish Cypriots would have veto powers. Mr Denktash is displeased with a proviso that 9 per-cent of Turkish Cyprus will be handed back but the pressure on him to reach an accord, both from his own supporters and from the new government in Ankara, is such that, despite his obduracy, he might just concede.
Mr Annan's real difficulty therefore may be with the Greek-Cypriots. Their new president, Mr Tassos Papadopoulos, was elected on a rejectionist platform although, paradoxically, he had the support of the powerful communist party which is in broad agreement with the UN plan. Since his election Mr Papadopoulos has been making conciliatory sounds but he has not formally backed down from the demand that all 170,000 displaced Greek Cypriots be allowed return to their former homes in the Turkish zone; the UN plan would allow for a maximum of 90,000.
The Greek-Cypriots, with three times the population of the Turkish-Cypriots, still resent the land-grab by Turkey in 1974 involving 37 per cent of the island. Many Greek-Cypriots would eagerly block any reunification to prolong the economic and diplomatic isolation of Turkish Cypriots. But Mr Papadopoulos must put his hardline past behind him and make such reasonable concessions as are necessary to reunite the island. If the Greek-Cypriots block reunification, safe in the knowledge that their EU membership is assured anyway, then the EU member-states should seriously re-examine the merits of their candidacy.