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Cyprus: UN official stresses need to maintain momentum in reunification talks

10 June 2010 – With talks having resumed between the Greek Cypriot leader and the newly-elected Turkish Cypriot leader, a senior United Nations official today stressed the need to ensure that the negotiations aimed at reunifying the Mediterranean island continue to progress.

“The process needs to maintain momentum. There needs to be continual forward movement in the negotiations,” said Alexander Downer, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Adviser on Cyprus.

The talks that resumed in late May were the first between Dervis Eroglu – who replaced Mehmet Ali Talat as the Turkish Cypriot leader following elections in the northern part of Cyprus in April – and Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias.

Following a closed-door meeting with the Security Council, Mr. Downer told reporters in New York that the two leaders need to be enthusiastic about meeting, and having their officials meet from time to time, particularly when issues become difficult.

“And when things become difficult, to make sure that they redouble their efforts to find solutions to those difficult problems, not just put them off, not just procrastinate,” he added.

He said he believes the leaders are showing “a good deal of enthusiasm” to try to live up to the hope that the two sides expressed at the end of last year – namely that 2010 would be the year of a solution to the Cyprus problem.

“Both sides very much hope that will be the case,” said Mr. Downer. “The Turkish Cypriots have been more explicit in expressing the view that they think the negotiations should be complete by the end of 2010. The Greek Cypriots are much less explicit about that, and much less enthusiastic about having a particular date when the talks need to conclude.

“Ultimately, this is about issues and policies and finding ways through to an agreement which both sides can live with.”

The UN-backed negotiations began in 2008 after Mr. Christofias and Mr. Talat committed themselves to working towards “a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation with political equality, as defined by relevant Security Council resolution.”

That partnership would comprise a federal government with a single international personality, along with a Turkish Cypriot Constituent State and a Greek Cypriot Constituent State, which would be of equal status.

The leaders are expected to meet again for talks on 15 June, according to the Special Adviser, who briefed the Council on the Secretary-General’s latest report on the UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus (UNFICYP), which was set up in March 1964 following the outbreak of violence between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities.