Annan strives to sell Turkey his peace plan for Cyprus

“I believe Annan is going to tell us not to insist too much on February 28,” Yasar Yakis, the Foreign Minister, said yesterday. There is some leeway as Cyprus does not officially sign up for EU membership until April. But if no resolution is reached by then, a divided — in practice Greek-Cypriot — Cyprus will gain accession to the bloc next year.
Mr Annan is expected to present the third draft of a blueprint that envisages two ethnically based states linked by a common state, and a limited return of Greek Cypriots to land in the Turkish north.
Fed up with decades of isolation and economic deprivation, Turkish Cypriots have organised mass protests urging a deal that would allow them to exchange citizenship of an unacknowledged “republic” for European Union passports.