THE GREEK and Turkish Cypriot sides are at a deadlock over the matter of conducting simultaneous population censuses in the two communities, President Demetris Christofias said yesterday.
Speaking after his meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu, Christofias said the Greek Cypriot side had submitted a specific proposal: “The censuses should be done on the same day and supervised – in every sense of the word supervised – by international organisations, led by the United Nations Organisation.”
The president added that the two sides were at a deadlock over this but the Greek Cypriot side would revisit the matter, he said.
Christofias pinned the deadlock on Eroglu’s insistence on wanting to underline the so-called statehood of the breakaway state. “You realise this is unacceptable to us,” Christofias said.
Last week, Eroglu voiced his disagreement over the proposal for simultaneous censuses but said the breakaway state will carry out a census “based on international standards and through dialogue with the relevant UN officials.”
“But we are not at all considering a simultaneous census with the south,” Eroglu added.
A main stumbling block in any plan to resolve the Cyprus problem would be the thousands of Turkish settlers in the north, whose exact numbers are unknown.
Yesterday, Eroglu said that the two sides’ views on citizenship were clear and that the matter would be reviewed by technical committees presided by the two leaders’ representatives Kudret Ozersay and Giorgos Iacovou.
“This issue will be brought to the negotiating table again in the future and we will see whether convergence can be achieved,” Eroglu was quoted as saying by Anadolu news agency.
The citizenship issue was not discussed yesterday.
The two leaders met for just under an hour and started to discuss the internal aspects of security and continue with this chapter next Wednesday.
The chapter includes matters like policing, jurisdictions and the two communities’ participation in the federal security forces.
“It is a quiet broad subject and there will be a lot of discussion,” Christofias told reporters.
