Aides meet to set agenda for key meeting

AS PRESIDENT Demetris Christofias yesterday continued his meetings with the political parties, senior aides met under UN auspices to work out the agenda for Friday’s crucial meeting between the leaders.

“Presidential Commissioner George Iacovou and advisor to the Turkish Cypriot leader Ozdil Nami met today, in the presence of the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative Taye-Brook Zerihoun and decided the time and the venue of Friday’s meeting,” Government Spokesman Stefanos Stefanou told reporters yesterday.

Stefanou was reticent to comment on the visit to the north at the weekend of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose comments about two states and virgin births caused some tension.

“Now we are concentrating on the forthcoming meeting and are trying to be low-key to help maintain a climate that will sustain the dialogue,” said Stefanou.

Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat will meet at 11am on Friday at Zerihoun’s residence to review the work of the groups and committees and to decide whether to go forward to negotiations in September.

The UN’s special envoy, former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who prior to the UN’s announcement said he was taking the Cyprus job yet never responded when the UN actually went public, will not be at Friday’s meeting.

Despite no official word about a date for new negotiations, it is widely expected that the leaders will fix a date when they meet on Friday. Neither side would want to appear to be the ones backing off from fully-fledged negotiations.

Stefanou said that until Friday Christofias would continue his meetings with Greek Cypriot party leaders to clarify what the grounds for future negotiations would be.

He has already met coalition partner DIKO three times and is due to meet party leader Marios Garoyian again tomorrow, after which DIKO, which has expressed reservations as to whether the time is ripe for talks, will take a final position.

Yesterday, Christofias met the central Committee of ruling AKEL and he will meet DIKO this evening at 6.30pm, and immediately after, opposition DISY at 7pm. DISY is keen for talks to go forward.

Tomorrow, Christofias will meet socialist EDEK and the European Party. This will be followed by a meeting with the Green Party.

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.