THE TWO leaders will meet today for what will likely be the second to last time before UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon presents his progress report to the UN Security Council this month.
After today, President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu will have only met twice since their tripartite meeting with Ban in Geneva on January 28, while their respective aides Georgios Iacovou and Kudret Ozersay have been meeting twice a week.
It remains to be seen what kind of progress Ban can talk about when he presents his report at the end of this month or early March to the Security Council.
UN Special Adviser Alexander Downer, currently in Australia, will have a hard time drafting a “progress” report on the last month since the leaders’ meetings have largely focused on procedural matters.
Ban has encouraged the two sides, both in November, when the three met in New York, and in Geneva last month to find ways to overcome their differences and push ahead towards a solution. In Geneva, he recommended that both sides make use of UN experts on property to overcome the impasse.
The UN appears to be losing a little patience with the talks and wants to see the two sides come up with a concrete plan on the next steps in the talks. There has been much talk of another meeting with Ban in late March or early April, after which the talks are expected to take a break for elections in Cyprus and Turkey.
What happens next, in June, will be key to the future of these talks.
Meanwhile, Iacovou and Ozersay have been meeting more regularly, including an all-day session on Tuesday, where they worked on governance and power-sharing, EU affairs and the economy, chapters for which Christofias and Eroglu’s predecessor, Mehmet Ali Talat, already reached a fair amount of convergence.
Ban and Downer will likely focus more on what has happened since November, rather than the last few weeks.
In the meantime, the Greek Cypriot side appears to be preparing along with Greece to avoid any negative references in the report. Greek Foreign Minister Demetris Droutsas was just in Cyprus and then London, while today he is expected to have meetings at the UN in New York.
According to one diplomat close to the negotiations, the UN is not talking about timeframes but is hinting at the fact that it “really want to see results” and soon.
The two sides “need stronger messages that time is not on their side”, said the diplomat.
“Ban has invested a lot of time in this because he wants to show them that he means business,” the diplomat added.
Results, of course, could go either way, either leading towards a solution or to the end of the road for the current phase of talks.
The source said while both leaders express their will for a solution, there appear to be many bumps in the road preventing one. “But there will always be external forces providing obstacles,” they added.
Ban will unlikely play the ‘blame game’ in his report, sticking to simply outlining what has been achieved and what hasn’t, what has been discussed and what has yet to be touched upon.
“The overriding message that has to be conveyed is that the UN would really like them to be quicker. This (process) has got to come to an end, very quickly. The longer it goes on, the harder it will be,” said the diplomat.
Asked whether the international community expected the two leaders to push full steam ahead after Turkey’s elections in June, the diplomat replied: “We’re not terribly convinced they’re moving in that direction.”
Meanwhile, an EU diplomat maintained that it was “too early” to say that the UN was planning an exit strategy.
“It’s up to Downer whether he goes at the end of June or not when his contract runs out. I think he will be back early March to encourage them to do more on property. But the crucial time will be in June when the UN will likely make a last big effort. Then they will decide whether to continue with the talks or not,” said the European diplomat.
