By George Psyllides
Building economic support for a settlement will be front and centre over the coming months and must be in place prior to any solution, both the Greek Cypriot side and the UN said on Tuesday.
The financial aspects of reunification must be resolved before the Cyprus problem is, government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said, stressing that it was a necessary requirement for the Greek Cypriot side.
Christodoulides said the sides must not wait for an agreement and a positive outcome in the referenda before looking at this aspect. “It is a matter that must be resolved before a potential solution is put to the people,” he said.
That view appeared to be shared by the UN Secretary General’s Special Adviser on Cyprus Espen Barth Eide who said a particular focus right now was on building economic support for a settlement.
“I am going to have a lot of meetings over the next weeks in New York, using the opportunity of the whole world coming together, building willingness to help build that fund relatively quickly, because the more we succeed on that front I think some of the crucial issues will be easier to solve,” Eide said after a meeting with President Nicos Anastasiades.
He said “crucial months are coming” and both he and the two leaders had recognised that progress had been made. “We also recognise the hard work remaining, so the big question now is how we optimise our time in the coming months, which means which issues we deal with and with which sequence and how do we connect all the dots,” Eide added.
He said he would not talk about specific details on inside chapters and was focusing on the big picture, “because after all the solution is a big picture solution”.
“It has many details and these details matter and they are serious, important issues but there is only a solution if we connect the dots and now we are in the connecting the dots phase, which is exactly where I think we should be in September.”
Asked why the coming months were so crucial, Eide said momentums come and go so he wanted to “use it while we still have it” to get as much done as possible, although his sense of the current momentum after meeting the leaders on Monday is that it was still there.
“This is also the leaders’ sense, so it is kind of an internal dynamic,” he added.
“But is also a reflection of the fact that the stars are well aligned now, they may not be well aligned all the time. And again both for the internal quality of the process, but also for the surrounding circumstances, I think it would be good to use this opportunity when we have it.”
In this respect, the negotiations would be intensified after October, Eide said, citing practical reasons for not being able to intensify the talks as from mid October.
“The leaders want to take more direct charge and that means significantly more frequent meetings from November on. And we will fill in the dates when they are there, but it means hands on, because at a certain stage they will have to basically settle some of the open issues. We have open issues where I think our shared sense is that they will be solved, but they will be solved in a context and we have to create that context,” Eide said.
He was quick to add however that no timeframes had been set.
“We haven’t even sought to have a timeline, because a timeline can be suffocating, because then the dates take dominance over substance. But I am very happy to hear the leaders say repeatedly that there is no time to lose.”
Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci said on Monday he wanted a solution before the May 2016 parliamentary elections in the Republic.
The government spokesman said the Greek Cypriot side wanted a solution as soon as possible – “by the end of the year if possible.”
Responding to a question, Christodoulides said it was the substance that mattered and not when a solution would be reached, adding too, that no timeframes had been set.
“The reply to your question would depend on the substance and result of the negotiations,” he said.
