DISY leader stresses importance of intensified talks

THE UNITED Nations is ‘investing’ a great deal in the upcoming full-day talks between the leaders of the two communities, DISY chief Nikos Anastassiades said yesterday.

“They are investing a great deal in the leaders’ two full-day meetings,” Anastassiades said after meeting UN Special Advisor Alexander Downer at the DISY headquarters.

“They are attaching a lot of importance on what will be the content of the dialogue at those two meetings,” he added.

President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu are meeting today and next week will hold two all-day talks.

Earlier this week Downer said he hoped that the two leaders could ‘break the back’ of the property issue – the trickiest dispute in the peace talks.

Cracking the property issue could be a ‘very important step forward’ in the Cyprus negotiations, Downer had said.

The Australian diplomat made no comments to newsmen yesterday, with Anastassiades asked repeatedly about the UN’s expectations.

The DISY boss said Downer had conveyed to him the UN’s feeling that the two full-day meetings would be crucial in determining how far the two sides’ positions had converged.

He said the UN expected the two sides to come to the negotiating table with “some positions” and that possibly there might be an exchange of “documents, proposals or ideas which might help the two sides of coming closer.”

Anastassiades took the opportunity to call for the National Council – the President’s advisory body – to be in constant session while peace talks were in an intensive stage.

Not only should the National Council hold regular meetings to discuss developments in the talks, and if possible the body should be convened in advance of meetings, for ‘pre-consultation’, said Anastassiades.

Ahead of today’s meeting of the leaders, government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou declined to comment on rumors and speculation that the Turkish Cypriot side had softened its positions on the property issue.

The UN’s role is to facilitate, and not to mediate, Stefanou said in response to a question.

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.