THE SECOND day of intensive talks on the Cyprus issue between President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat were “very open and very frank about the issues of governance and power-sharing”, UN Special Adviser Alexander Downer said yesterday.
Speaking after the eight-hour session, Downer said that the United Nations “are happy with the way the two leaders are conducting the negotiations. We think it is appropriate. There are, obviously, challenging issues. But we are happy with the way the negotiations have been proceeding over the last couple of days.”
The talks focused for a second day on the issue of governance and power sharing, with Christofias formally tabling a position paper containing the points he had made verbally on Monday. This took place against a rumble of discontent from some political parties over the latest proposals tabled in a document last week by Talat.
Opposition DISY leader Nicos Anastassiades said yesterday that his party’s official position is that the recent proposals from the Turkish Cypriot side were “unacceptable”.
EDEK leader Yiannakis Omirou said that during the ad-hoc meeting with the leaders of the main political parties last Sunday – the day before the start of the intensive talks – Christofias had assured them that “not only would he reject the Turkish Cypriot side’s (most recent) document, he would refuse to have any discussion on it – in effect deny that the position paper exists.”
Omirou also said that Christofias had indicated that he intended to discuss on the basis of the position papers already tabled by the Greek Cypriot side, and that any new document would be finalised at the National Council before being tabled formally.
AKEL spokesman Stavros Evagorou said that the most recent Turkish Cypriot position paper fell outside the agreed framework for the intensive talks, but there was no question of the Greek Cypriot side responding to this by withdrawing its own proposals or withdrawing from the talks altogether.
In comments to the press after yesterday’s talks, Christofias skirted around the document issue, saying that although he had formally submitted a paper containing “the full positions of the Greek Cypriot side on the issue of governance”, the ensuing discussion was based on the substance of the issue rather than dealing line by line with the document’s content.
The reason, he said, was “since, as you understand, we said we will not discuss the Turkish Cypriot document, it is not necessary to discuss the exact positions contained in our document.”
He added that “we are taking the positions of the two sides into account and we are discussing freely, having these positions in mind.”
Today’s talks will continue the discussion on the issue of governance and power-sharing.
Anastassiades said yesterday that DISY would make it its business to inform the governments of EU member states and UN Security Council members “on the positions of the Greek Cypriot side” through a series of meetings and working meals with local ambassadors. Anastassiades added that DISY will also arrange “as soon as possible” a series of meetings in Brussels to brief senior EU officials.
Meanwhile, Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s Minister of European Affairs and chief negotiator for accession to the EU, is due to visit to Spain shortly, where he will meet Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos on Sunday.
According to reports in the Turkish press, Bagis will be asking Moratinos to use his excellent relations with Christofias and other senior Greek Cypriot political figures to push for acceptance of four-way talks, involving the two sides in Cyprus plus Greece and Turkey.
