LATEST UNFICYP THINKING ON DEMINING, REPORTING TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 NICOSIA 000961

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SE, EUR/ERA, IO/UNP, ISN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/07/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV UNFICYP MOPS CY TU
SUBJECT: LATEST UNFICYP THINKING ON DEMINING, REPORTING TO
SECURITY COUNCIL

Classified By: Ambassador Frank C. Urbancic, Reasons 1.4 (b),(d)


1. (SBU) The Ambassador on December 4 met with Wlodek Cibor,
UNFICYP Senior Adviser and deputy to Taye-Brook Zerihoun, the
UN Secretary General's Special Representative in Cyprus.
Cibor was acting mission chief, as Zerihoun was in New York
to brief the Security Council on UNFICYP operations and the
Good Offices mission overseeing settlement negotiations.

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Demining -- Funding an Issue
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2. (C) Ambassador asked Cibor for the latest state of play
on demining efforts in the Buffer Zone. The UN diplomat
responded that the demining operation is about 80 percent
completed. It will require another $5 million to complete,
he said. The urgency to finish the work was highlighted by
another incident on December 4, in which a family, reportedly
Iraqi migrants and including children, had attempted to cross
over from the north to the south and accidentally walked into
a minefield. At least one person was seriously wounded,
apparently losing a limb. Cibor said that Turkish Cypriot
leader Mehmet Ali Talat had flatly refused to use any of the
European Union's 257 million-euro aid package destined for
T/Cs to fund continued demining operations, which likely
would halt in early 2009 without new financial support.
Cibor said that he had been in touch with the Commission in
Brussels in mid-November, and was told that the EU would not
be willing to challenge Talat. Even though Talat was not
representing an actual country, the Commission had said it
could not disregard his views.


3. (C) Cibor was critical of the UN Development Program
(UNDP),which manages the demining effort in Cyprus, for
"wasting" almost a year without aggressively pursuing donor
funding. Plan B for the UN now, therefore, was to go back to
the Turkish- and Greek-Cypriots. He had already talked to
Republic of Cyprus Presidential Adviser Leonidas Pantelides
to see if the RoC would agree to support the effort
financially, since it was to the advantage of all the people
on the island to clear the mines -- and the RoC claimed
jurisdiction over the whole island. It would be a great
confidence-building measure as well, Cibor thought. If the
UN can get a yes from the RoC, it will go back to the T/Cs
for matching funds to fill any remaining gap. (Note: At the
latest meeting of local P-5 chiefs of mission, the UK High
Commissioner and French Ambassador had seemed willing to
twist Talat's arm to get him to use EU money to fund 2009
demining operations, just as they had done last year for 2008
ops.)

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Reporting from Cyprus -- Last Year for Unified Report
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4. (C) Amplifying UN Special Adviser Alexander Downer's
comments to the Ambassador in November, Cibor said that this
December's report to the Secretary General will absolutely be
the last joint political/peacekeeping report. Relations
between DPKO and DPA in New York just aren't solid enough to
allow for jointness. He stressed, however, that on the
ground in Nicosia, these problems aren't occurring -- partly
because the personalities work better together on the ground,
and partly because the structure here already has Downer and
Zerihoun at the top of the pyramid overseeing both UNFICYP
and the UN Good Offices Mission. The Ambassador replied that
the USG was not strongly inclined to support this reporting
split, though Downer had indeed already mentioned that it was
his preference. Downer had thought March would be a likely
time for him to submit his first ad hoc report to the
Council, and he was contemplating doing it from time to time,
as glitches in the settlement negotiations arose. Cibor
wondered whether the Council might be willing to ask Downer
to submit regular statements on the progress achieved, say,
at six-month intervals. He and the Ambassador eventually
agreed, however, that opening this up to the Council might
not lead to the desired outcome.


5. (C) The Ambassador committed to Cibor to report this
latest UN thinking to Washington. He also posited that it
might be better for Downer simply to announce to the two
sides at their next meeting that he would begin reporting to
the Council in, say, March and September. That way, nobody
would be taken by surprise, and the Council would be
receiving quarterly reports on the political talks (in March
and September),and on peacekeeping operations (in June and
December).

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Urbancic