Biden: solution must come from the Cypriots

DIFFERENCES between the two communities on how to resolve the island decades-long dispute are not irreconcilable, and a solution must come from Cypriots, US Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday night.

“Things do not have to remain as they are now,” Biden said in a statement coming out of a dinner at the Ledra Palace in the UN-patrolled buffer zone in Nicosia.

Flanked by President Nicos Anastasiades, Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu and the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Cyprus Lisa Buttenheim, Biden announced that the two leaders have agreed to speed up the process of negotiations as well as intensify efforts towards confidence-building measures.

The function at the Ledra Palace took longer than expected, with Biden and the leaders stepping outside a few minutes past 10pm.

The two leaders, he also revealed, have agreed henceforth to meet twice a month as part of the talks’ process.

Following the first statement, the two leaders went back inside. Biden stayed to read out a second, lengthier statement in which he said that it was ultimately up to the two communities to reach an agreement.

“There will always be doubters. A solution cannot come from the outside, nor from the United States,” he said.

 

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.