THE NATIONAL Council will convene on July 12 to evaluate the fourth round of UN-led direct talks between President Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, which ended on Tuesday.
Government spokesman Michalis Papapetrou said yesterday Clerides had called the National Council meeting to “evaluate what has or has not emerged from the fourth round of talks”.
UN envoy for Cyprus Alvaro de Soto said on Wednesday he was disappointed that the leaders of the two communities had not cracked the four core issues of the Cyprus problem by the end-June target date.
Speaking before his departure for Vienna to brief UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan, de Soto said the framework for a solution, as envisaged when the direct talks began in mid-January, was not yet ready.
Denktash had proposed the June target date and Clerides had agreed. It was then adopted by the UN as an achievable goal but the talks have achieved little, if any, progress over the past six months. They will resume on July 16.
De Soto had a 40-minute meeting with Annan in Vienna on Wednesday night.”De Soto briefed the Secretary-general and heard his input about how to move forward” with the negotiations, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said yesterday.
He said the UN did not intend to issue a statement on the meeting.Replying to questions, Eckhard said he was not aware of any plans for another meeting early next week between de Soto and the Secretary-general.De Soto will now head for New York via Paris, where Britain’s envoy on Cyprus, Lord Hannay, is meeting heads of departments at the French foreign ministry dealing with EU enlargement and Eastern Mediterranean affairs.The two envoys, who have been engaged in the Cyprus peace effort for a number of years, may meet in the French capital as part of their regular exchanges of views on the peace process.
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.
