Greek, Turkish Cypriot leaders set July 1 date to review peace process
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat will meet next month to assess progress made during preparatory talks before deciding whether to launch a fresh initiative to end the island's division, a U.N. official said on Friday. But aides to Christofias and Talat declined at a news conference to say when full, direct negotiations would start, Reuters reported. (UPDATED)
"The leaders will meet on July 1 in line with their March 21 agreement," U.N. chief of mission Taye-Brook Zerihoun told a news conference, the AFP reported.
Zerihoun told reporters preparatory meetings between experts have so far produced tangible results.
"The simple answer is, whenever we decide to start the talks," said Greek Cypriot aide George Iacovou.
"We are working very hard to start full-fledged negotiations," Turkish Cypriot aide Ozdil Nami added.
Envoyw, Nami and Iacovou had met on Thursday but failed to schedule a meeting between the two leaders of the ethnically divided island and agreed to meet again on Friday to confirm a date for the meeting.
The two leaders brokered a landmark agreement on March 21 to enter fully-fledged peace talks after a series of meetings at the level of technical committees.
They met again last month and decided to review progress made at the preparatory stage in the second half of June to see if the conditions are right to launch direct negotiations to end three decades of division.
Early expectations that the talks could start in June appeared to be dissipating as both sides find the going sluggish at the committee level when faced with sensitive issues of property, territory and security.
Iacovou suggested that the language of reunification still needed some major modification, the AFP reported.
"We feel we need clarity, and this clarity is the clarity of objective, of vision, which means of language as well," Iacovou was quoted by the AFP as saying.
"There must be no doubt that we are in negotiations working together towards a common objective. I'm sorry there seems to be some different opinion on the Turkish Cypriot side but this is why we need to meet," he said.
Nami does not foresee any serious obstacles to face-to-face talks getting off the ground as soon as possible.
"We ... don’t expect much delay and we look forward to the onset of full-fledged negotiations.
"Right now what we should really concentrate on is the start of fully fledged negotiations where the details of these parameters ... will be negotiated," he said.
Turkish Cypriot Foreign Minister Turgay Avci called for "an immediate start of peace talks" aimed at finding a comprehensive solution to the
"Negotiations must start immediately. It is impossible to accept any pre-condition for the two leaders to talk," he told reporters in the Ugandan capital,
Avci also urged the European Union to live up to its word to lift the economic isolations on Turkish Cypriots, which he said would force the Greek Cypriot side to sit at the negotiation table.
The OIC has given the Turkish Cypriots the status of a constituent state, making the Turkish Cypriots an observer member of the organization.Â
"Also third parties should behave carefully and responsibly," Babacan said, addingÂ
The FM said that international organizations should approach the problem sensitively, and expressed his wish that the United Nations would make a constructive contribution to the process.
Photo: AP