The prospects for a Cyprus settlement seem as remote as they have ever been, while more than a year and a half have passed since a UN reunification plan was rejected by the Greek Cypriots in April 2004.
Tasos Tzionis, top advisor to Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos, indicated in an interview last week with a local daily that there is no sign of any renewed international interest in the Cyprus issue.
That the plan sponsored by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan should never be resurrected in any shape or form sent out an unequivocal signal to anyone who tempted to revive the idea, said Tzionis, pointing out that almost 70 percent of Greek Cypriots rejected the plan.
"Therefore, my personal opinion is that it will be a mistake to return to a process to solve the Cyprus problem based on a document that was rejected politically and legally by the people and that will bring back to the surface negative moments in their collective memory," said the key presidential advisor.
Similar views were expressed by others such as Gustave Feissel, former UN resident representative for the island.
Believing that the Cyprus problem is going nowhere, he said the Annan plan is unfit and should be scrapped in favor of a new approach to a settlement.
Feissel, who was involved in the Cyprus issue from 1984 to 1998, told local media that the bad feeling left by the plan was so strong that it could not be salvaged as a workable solution.
"I'm not knocking the Annan plan. A lot of work went into it and it's a very sincere effort, but talking to people here... this has left such a bad taste in people's mouths that trying to fix it will, in my view, be nearly impossible," he said.
Commenting on the current deadlock, the former senior UN official said it appeared to him that despite the Greek Cypriot side having acquired the "security blanket" of the EU membership that they have been seeking all these years, the Cyprus issue was currently going nowhere.
When the latest UN-sponsored reunification efforts failed in April last year, the Greek Cypriot government and many people here hoped that Turkey's supervised European Union bid will become a catalyst for a solution that will conform with the UN Security Council resolutions and EU principles.
They held that the Greek Cypriot side would be in a far more favorable position when Turkey, a main player in the Cyprus issue, just started its preparations for accession talks with the European Union and had to politically recognize the Republic of Cyprus.
However, such developments did not happen. On the contrary, in July this year, Ankara refused to open its ports to Cypriot vessels, although it agreed to extend a customs union deal with the EU to all 10 new member states, including Cyprus.
At the same time, Turkey issued a declaration saying its signature of the customs union did not mean it recognizes the Republic of Cyprus, insisting that the recognition can only come when a broad international agreement that ends the division of the island is reached.
Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat is also firmly opposed to Turkey's recognition of the Republic of Cyprus, saying such an action means accepting the present conditions -- that Turkey is occupying the north and that the Greek Cypriots are the only legal administration.
Meanwhile, with its limited influence within the EU, the internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot government failed to block the EU accession course of Turkey, while started on Oct. 3, 2005, as scheduled.
Some local politicians also blamed the government for losing " the sole chance to lay the European foundations for a future solution to the Cyprus problem."
Under such circumstances, it is difficult for the Greek Cypriot side to make any concessions on the national issue. In September this year, the government had to make "a few but vital" demands to the United Nations concerning the changes it wanted to the Annan plan.
However, responding to the Greek Cypriot demands, which have not been revealed so far, Annan has hinted for several times that it is still too early to restart the talks since the differences between the visions of the two sides on the island are "vast".
The past year also witnessed confrontations between the two sides on the issue of the so-called isolation of the northern Cyprus and direct trade between northern Cyprus and the EU.
Greek-Cypriot leaders were upset at efforts by their Turkish- Cypriot counterparts to break out of the diplomatic isolation, creating new strains between the two communities.
Particularly, Greek Cypriots were uneasy about a visit to New York and Washington by Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat, closely followed by four members of the Turkish-Cypriot parliament, who attended a Washington seminar.
"The US moves promote divisive tendencies instead of bringing about reunification," charged Cypriot President Papadopoulos, adding that "they create hope that the (Turkish) occupation regime could possibly be upgraded to a separate legal entity."
Talat retorted that in his talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, he merely asked the Americans "to continue their path, their line of supporting the lifting of isolation of Turkish Cypriots and to further encourage other countries to take similar steps."
He also kept up pressure on the EU to stick to its promises to bring the Turkish Cypriots out of political and economic isolation.
Talat's belief was that if the EU manages to implement proposals for direct EU trade with his community, the Greek Cypriots will be forced to return to the negotiating table.
The north has been under international trade embargo in 1974 and the Cypriot government maintains that the "direct trade" scheme will be a de facto recognition of "the Turkish occupation".
Cyprus has been divided into Greek Cypriot south and Turkish Cypriot north since 1974 when Turkish forces took control of the northern third of the island following a failed coup engineered by Greek Cypriots seeking union with Greece.
Negotiations for the reunification of the island have been on and off since 1975 under the UN auspices, but so far the international efforts have failed to yield major breakthroughs.