"A simple dinner can achieve so much
“TWO CYPRIOTS sat down to talk in general and to confirm how friendly they can be when they talk instead of simply staring at each other.”
Those were the words of former president Glafcos Clerides, who crossed the Green Line on Thursday night to have dinner with Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat. “I am an old man,” he added, “and Talat is younger. Yet we both share a love for Cyprus and have a common interest.”
Clerides is experienced enough to know that kind words and symbolic gestures are not enough to overcome the chasm between Greek and Turkish Cypriots on a political settlement to the Cyprus problem. And yet what a difference they can make in breaking the political ice between the two sides.
Of course, Clerides today has no political authority for his meeting with Talat to be anything more than a chat between two individuals over dinner, one which apparently went well enough for Clerides to reciprocate the gesture with an invitation to Talat to visit him at his Nicosia home."
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