Trilateral meeting for Cyprus, finally...

Who managed to convince the Greek Cypriot leadership to drop its intransigence and agree to meet with the Turkish Cypriot leader in the presence of the U.N. secretary-general? Was it the Americans, or the British, or combined brinkmanship? Or did Nikos Anastasiades receive a heavenly message that insisting on his obsessive and rejectionist superiority complex was torpedoing the "peace-loving Niko" image he had been so happy with?

Whatever it was that helped him overcome that psychological impediment and agree to meet with Mustafa Ak?nc? as well as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was certainly very important. Even if no tangible outcome was likely to emerge from that encounter, (details of the meeting were unavailable at the time of writing), the very fact that it took place was very important.

Why? It has been a perennial handicap of the Greek Cypriot side to stay away from any action that might help the Turkish Cypriots give an image that they were not, are not, and would not be subordinates - or "subjects" - of a government composed entirely of Greeks. Since the March 1964 U.N. resolution that considered - because of the "force majeure" conditions of the time created by the Greek Cypriots - the Turkish Cypriot-absent government on the island to be the legitimate Cyprus government, Greek Cypriots have been eager not to "dilute" that perception. Meeting with a Turkish Cypriot leader in the presence of a third party, for example, was long considered something that could consolidate the "equality" of the two administrations on Cyprus and thus would dilute the "sole legitimate government of entire island" status of the Greek Cypriot government. That government was in violation of the 1960 founding agreements, as well as the constitution of the state, but...