PRESIDENT Glafcos Clerides said yesterday that the necessary progress needed to make way for a solution to the Cyprus problem had not yet been achieved.
He was addressing a group of professors and students of the Philosophy Faculty of the University of Athens who visited him at the Presidential Palace.
Asked to comment on Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem’s statements as regards to Cyprus’ EU accession that all relevant factors should be taken into account and that responsibilities should be attributed to the Greek Cypriot side, the President said it is not Cem “who will decide where responsibility lies in case of deadlock in the Cyprus talks, but the UN Secretary-general, based on the reports he will receive, and Europe, based on the reports it will receive from the EU representatives in Cyprus”.
Clerides expressed his hope that the talks would have a positive outcome, which will prove beneficial both for the Greek and the Turkish Cypriot community in view of the island’s EU accession.
The President made it clear that in a previous statement he had not said the Cyprus talks are at a deadlock, but that up to now there have not been such openings so that one might say there is substantial progress on the basic principles of the Cyprus question.
President Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash have been having direct negotiation talks since January 16, under UN auspices. The second round of talks ended on Wednesday, with the third round expected to resume on April 9.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
