Downer: talks ‘going fine’

THE pace of the talks aimed at resolving the Cyprus issue “is fine at the moment” following the gap caused by the election of Dervis Eroglu as leader of the Turkish Cypriot community, UN Special Adviser Alexander Downer said yesterday.

Speaking to reporters after meeting President Demetris Christofias at the presidential palace yesterday morning, ahead of today’s resumption of the talks, Downer said that “they had to get the talks going after the ‘elections’ in the north so obviously there was a down period. There was a re-launch of the talks. They are going fine now. The pace of the talks is fine at the moment.”

Declining to go into the detail of yesterday’s discussion with Christofias, Downer said that the two “had a good opportunity to review where we are at in the negotiations and we are looking forward to the leaders’ meeting tomorrow. Yesterday afternoon we had a meeting of the representatives and it’s likely that the representatives will be meeting again during the course of next week and the leaders will meet again the week after.”

Downer said that specific issues such as territory and settlers “have been discussed in the past but, importantly, are to be discussed in the future. All of these questions will be discussed, exactly when is something the leaders will have to work out among themselves.”

Invited to comment on statements made by the Belgian Ambassador on the Report of the Secretary General next November, Downer said that “at the end of the day, it’s the Secretary General’s Report. We here in Nicosia will obviously provide some input into that report, but he will make his own mind up about what his report will say.”

He added that “we are in the middle of July, and what will be in the Report in November, I have absolutely no idea. No one has given any thought in the United Nations to what would be in this report.”

The leaders continue their talks this morning on the property issue.

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.