Cyprus Mail: Press Review in English, 98-09-19

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From: The Cyprus Mail at <http://www.cynews.com/>

Saturday, September 19, 1998

Flight moratorium takes off again

RENEWED efforts by Britain and the US to get the two sides to agree to a flights moratorium in Cyprus were currently under way, several newspapers reported yesterday.

Phileleftheros said that the presence of President Clerides and Rauf Denktash at UN headquarters had re-activated the diplomatic efforts on the Cyprus problem. Britain and the US were focusing on the old proposal for the implementation of an overflights ban and the cancellation of the missile deployment.

Washington and London were preparing the ground for a new initiative by the UN Secretary-General, which would attempt to secure a resumption of the military dialogue. One objective is to have a provision about demilitarisation in the initiative, which would not be linked to the missile issue, because Turkey does not consider this a subject for negotiation.

Haravghi is critical of Britain and the US because their effort focused solely on the moratorium, sidelining the substance of the Cyprus problem and ignoring the Turkish proposal for a confederation. This attitude encouraged Turkish intransigence.

This was confirmed by a statement made by senior Foreign Office official Peter Rickets who said Britain was concentrating on the practical arrangements that would make a moratorium feasible.

Alithia reported that CONSON, a company that imported military equipment, had been ordered by court to pay £500,000 to the Inland Revenue. The paper said that the ruling had vindicated its campaign of many years, trying to shed light on the paybacks and backhanders associated with Cyprus' arms purchases.

The matter was raised by the House, which found that CONSON had sold helicopters to the National Guard without declaring to the Inland Revenue the commissions it paid. The matter was taken to court and the company was forced to produce tax statement for a number of years. If the statements were found to be misleading, the charges would be brought against the company's chief executive.

Simerini led with a report about falling share prices in all the major stockmarkets. It said this was caused by the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, who had said the attempts of countries to control capital movements was a mistaken practice.

Similar sentiments were also expressed by the heads of the central banks of Britain and Germany, sparking a bout of selling on the world markets.

Machi reported that a survey of English consumers had found that Cyprus potatoes were the least popular on the market. The survey, commissioned by a big supermarket chain, asked what consumers thought about the quality, taste and aroma of a range of potatoes.

The most popular potatoes were those from Italy, Egypt and Spain.

© Copyright Cyprus Mail 1998

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