Downer expected in Cyprus next weekend

The UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor on the Cyprus issue Alexander Downer is planning to visit the island on December 8, UNFICYP spokesman Michel Bonnardeaux said Saturday.
“Meetings are still in a planning stage,” he added.
Meanwhile, reliable sources have told CNA that efforts for a Joint Declaration between the leaders of the island’s two communities, President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu, continue.
A renewed effort to solve the Cyprus problem began in September with meetings between the two negotiators. Earlier this week Anastasiades and Eroglu met, at the former’s initiative, to try and make headway, a goal which was not achieved.

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.