ANKARA - The United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's Special Envoy to Cyprus Alvaro de Soto pays farewell to Ankara after the solution process based on Annan Plan collapsed and the U.N. office in Cyprus was decided to be closed.
De Soto who met with Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul and bureaucrats replied questions of reporters while leaving Foreign Ministry.
When asked whether another plan for Cyprus would be presented, De Soto said that they did not plan to present another plan. When asked what his next mission would be, De Soto said that the solution of Cyprus problem was a temporary mission and now he would return to his real mission as Annan's Special Representative for Western Sahara.
Upon another question, De Soto said that the plan was accepted in half with the votes of Turkish Cypriots in favor of the plan.
Diplomatic sources thought that the U.N. would not appoint a new special envoy to Cyprus under the existing condition and after Greek Cypriots majorly rejected the plan.
De Soto who was appointed to his mission by Annan on November 1, 1991 is known with his success in El Salvador to end civil war which lasted ten years. De Soto also has contributions to solution efforts for the problem between India and Pakistan.
De Soto who has been working for U.N. for 22 years had joined the U.N. in 1982 as the special assistant of U.N. Secretary General of that period. De Soto had carried out El Salvador negotiations between 1990 and 1991 which ended with peace agreement.
Before joining the U.N., De Soto had presented his country Peru in U.N. headquarters in New York and then in U.N. Permanent Office in Geneva between 1978 and 1982 on various levels.
(GC-AY) 29.04.2004