THE TWO leaders yesterday agreed to have two all-day meetings and one ‘normal’ meeting before both depart for New York this month in an effort to reach some convergence on the property issue.
Speaking after their first meeting since the summer break, President Demetris Christofias said the two yesterday enjoyed a “cordial atmosphere”. Asked if the talks began with good omens, he cited a Cypriot proverb: “If it’s an apple, it will blossom”.
He said the two leaders used yesterday’s one and a half hour meeting to set out their next moves for the month including an exchange of documents on the property issue.
According to Christofias, the two sides will outline their general positions again, exchange documents and continue the discussion in the coming meetings. They will meet this Friday morning for two to three hours, and again next week on Tuesday and Friday from 10am to 5pm with a break for lunch.
“I wouldn’t call it intensification (of the talks). We will meet three times before we leave for New York,” said Christofias.
The president denied that a meeting would take place between himself, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York this month.
Eroglu said he believed the two sides would close the gap on property after discussing each others’ proposals in depth.
“Christofias sometimes tries to put the territory issue on the agenda,” he said, adding that the proposals to be submitted will be on property.
Both sides are keen to show a willingness to make forward strides before Ban’s progress report on the talks due out in November.
So far, the two sides have made little headway, the main sticking point being the percentage of properties that will be returned to Greek Cypriot refugees.
The Turkish Cypriot side argues in favour of a limited return, to ensure the bizonality of a solution, focusing mainly on how to finance compensation for Greek Cypriot properties that will end up in the Turkish Cypriot-administered part of a federal state.
The recent European Court of Human Rights’ decision ‘Demopoulos’, which refers to the rights of current users, is strongly leaned on to support this position.
The Greek Cypriot negotiating team maintains that international law and the rights of the lawful inhabitants should dictate what to do with the properties.
In the meantime, the UN is working with the sides to come up with ways and means to finance any property solution. Reports suggest that the private sector could play a key role in this process. The agreed mechanism for establishing the value of properties will play a huge role in any possible progress on the issue.
UN Special Envoy Alexander Downer said yesterday the preference for the intensified talks is to use the same location as last January, the UN Chief of Mission’s residency.
However, the residence had a practical problem in that “it leaked quite a lot” earlier this year, he told reporters. “As in the water came in, I don’t, of course, mean leaks in relation to you people. But the water came in and did some damage,” he added.
Downer noted that both leaders had busy travel plans for the second half of September with Christofias attending a European Council meeting in Brussels, the UNGA in New York and a summit on the Millennium Development Goals. Eroglu is also expected to travel to New York.
Asked whether he was pleased with the progress made so far, given that Friday’s meeting marks two years since the talks began, Downer said the two sides “have made some good progress” but that the UN wanted to see them negotiate a settlement.
“It has taken time of course but on the other hand it’s best to take time and get it right, not to rush through things for the sake of rushing through them and get it wrong,” he said.
The Australian diplomat highlighted that any agreement had to be “very carefully thought through” if it was to be implemented successfully.
“Both sides have to be able to sell it” to their respective communities. “And that is a political challenge for them of course,” he said.
