THE PRESIDENT is going to New York to meet the UN Secretary-General whether he has the support of the parties or not, said government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou last night.
President Demetris Christofias briefed the parties on the latest developments in the peace talks last night in a three-hour meeting of the National Council.
Earlier in the day Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu met for the last time before both head off to New York next week to meet with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Speaking after the Council meeting, Stefanou clarified that the president had taken a clear position on the two-day meeting with Ban and Eroglu at the end of the month.
“We are going to New York,” he said, in reference to calls by DIKO and EDEK for him not to go.
Asked whether the president was going with the support of the parties, Stefanou replied: “It’s not a matter of having support or not. The issue is the president is the negotiator of the Greek Cypriot side… When you are invited to meet with the UNSG, I don’t think there’s anybody who believes they can turn down such a request.”
The spokesman said the president would approach the meeting in a “creative and constructive” manner.
He noted that during the last tripartite with Ban in July, the UNSG called on the leaders to intensify their meetings and seek greater convergences based on two conditions: a commitment to the agreed basis of an agreement, and on the convergences and near convergences already achieved in the peace talks.
“During this period of negotiations, the president fully met these commitments,” said Stefanou, adding he could not say the same for the Turkish Cypriot negotiating team.
Ruling AKEL leader Andros Kyprianou said the issue of whether Christofias should attend the New York meeting or not was raised during the National Council briefing.
“The president will go to New York. We are not naive. We know very well that Turkey with its supporters will attempt to promote its own positions, as it tried in past meetings. In the same way (Christofias) very correctly handled the last two (tripartite) meetings, he will do the same again,” said Kyprianou.
The AKEL leader noted that things were not where the Greek Cypriots would like them to be but that the president has handled the situation well, revealing the intransigence of the Turkish side and its attempts to backtrack on issues already agreed with Eroglu’s predecessor Mehmet Ali Talat.
Asked to comment on a statement made earlier in the day by UN Special Adviser Alexander Downer regarding “good progress” on some issues in the talks, Kyprianou called on UN officials to present the reality “and not seek to show artificial progress where it doesn’t exist”.
The leaders of DISY, DIKO and EDEK made no comment after the meeting.
Marking the last round of negotiations before the New York meetings on October 30 and 31, Downer said the two leaders had “a more productive meeting” yesterday than they had last Wednesday, focusing on the questions of the executive and citizenship.
Explaining how the process will work in New York, Downer said Ban will now be able to examine the differences that still exist on some issues with the leaders and “try to explore with them how the leaders believe they can resolve those differences”.
Downer will brief the UNSG next Saturday on where the talks have left off exactly, after which Ban will decide how precisely he wants to handle the tripartite. He noted that since the July 7 meeting with Ban in Geneva, the two leaders have made “some good progress in some areas”.
The next step is to figure out why there are difficulties that still remain and what the two leaders can do to resolve those difficulties, said the Australian diplomat.
Downer highlighted that all peace processes require “a lot of patience and in the end compromise”, adding that “compromise doesn’t always come very fast”.
Asked whether he felt there was significant progress, he replied: “I think it would be fair to say in this situation that there has been progress on several of the core issues and that’s encouraging… But, there are still some important divergences that need to be resolved.”
Following the talks, Eroglu painted a slightly more optimistic picture: “We are going to New York with the hope and belief that there will be an agreement.”
