AT THEIR current slow pace the Cyprus talks are not likely to reach an agreement “for quite some time”, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a draft report issued late on Monday.
Ban said the talks were “drifting” and taking longer than then UN had hoped. The pace needed to be faster. He said that since his last report on Cyprus five months ago, the pace had actually slowed down.
During their meeting with Ban in July in Geneva, the leaders agreed to intensified talks twice a week. They held one intensified meeting on July 25 and another on July 29, which was cut short, and have now taken a two-week break.
They are due to meet Ban again in October in New York, by which time he said they must have reached convergence.
“We have clearly reached a defining moment in the talks, when all efforts must be employed to keep the process viable and capable of delivering a mutually beneficial solution. I expect the two leaders to reach such a solution as soon as possible,” Ban said in his report.
He said although both sides had put forward bridging proposals, the approach to achieving compromise “has not always been productive or yielded results”.
“A considerable amount of time has been spent in clarifying positions instead of moving towards convergences,” Ban added.
He called for a more dynamic process including a comprehensive approach on all core issues including security, territory, property and governance. According to Ban, while some issues related to security had been touched on, important aspects had not been discussed. A return to discussing property was also long-overdue, he said. “There remains fundamental disagreement on the issue of conditions for restitution and the mode for exchange,” he said.
“Negotiations on the matter of territory should also be initiated as it remains one of the chapters least explored to date. This can be done without prejudice to the fact that both sides have agreed that the issue of maps and figures related to this chapter should be discussed only during the last phase of the process prior to a multilateral meeting,” Ban added.
On governance, Ban said there had been convergence in some areas related to international treaties, and the economy.
The primary remaining divergence was on how the settlement agreement would be incorporated into European Union law in order to ensure its legal certainty.
“The issue of citizenship has not been discussed substantively since I met with the leaders in January. In response to the Greek Cypriot call for a demographic census, I made available the expertise of the United Nations in this area. The census process is only a related matter, however. While the census process is being carried out, the sides must resolve the core issue of who should be considered citizens of the united Cyprus,” Ban said.
Negotiations aside, the UNSG said for a reinvigorated process to fully take root and be successful the sides would have to work to reach “a common shared objective” and desist from playing the blame game. He also warned that time was a factor and the leaders must rise to the occasion.
