THE third round of UN-led proximity talks in Geneva is likely to last most of July with a break in August and a fourth round starting in September.
According to Greece’s ambassador to Cyprus, Kyriacos Rodousakis, the third round of talks, set to kick off on July 5 in Geneva, will last approximately three weeks, with small breaks in between meetings.
Sources close to the government, meanwhile, said President Glafcos Clerides had been told to be prepared to spend the entire month in Geneva.
Speaking after a meeting with Clerides to discuss progress on the Cyprus problem and an upcoming meeting between the President and Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis, Rodousakis said the fourth round of talks would almost certainly take place in New York.
The talks will probably precede the Millennium Summit, where world leaders will meet ahead of the UN General Assembly meeting on the third Tuesday of September.
Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou said yesterday the UN and many countries in the international community were attempting to upgrade the upcoming proximity talks into more direct negotiations.
Speaking during his daily briefing, Papapetrou said the Greek Cypriot side would be happy to move onto more substantial talks, provided the Turkish Cypriot side was willing to do the same.
"What the government knows is that the UN and various countries are carrying out attempts to upgrade the talks. In any case, I want to say that if this is the Turkish side’s intention, then this satisfies our side because our intention is not only to exchange positions and opinions but to get into substantial negotiations that will create the preconditions to finding a solution to the Cyprus problem."
Hurriet Kibris newspaper yesterday reported that the two sides would be able to exchange written or oral positions during the third round, something that had not been done in previous rounds at which a UN mediator acted as go-between for the two sides.
Papapetrou said that the government had not been approached to lift the embargo against the occupied areas in exchange for the return of the ghost town of Varosha, as reported in a local paper yesterday.
Papapetrou said that if such a proposal were made, it would be carefully examined by Clerides and by the National Council, but that the government’s refusal to recognise the occupied areas as a sovereign state was not negotiable.
