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Cypriot rivals agree to meet in bid to end deadlock
NICOSIA, Oct 12, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A rare meeting between rival Cypriot
leaders will be arranged by the United Nations in the coming days in a bid to
kick-start reunification talks after a 15-month hiatus.
Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said Friday the United Nations will
arrange a meeting with his Turkish Cypriot counterpart Mustafa Akinci to try
to end the current deadlock.
A UN-backed peace conference collapsed in acrimony in Switzerland in July
2017 and there have been no official negotiations since then.
The last time the rival leaders tried to get the talks back on track was
at an informal dinner in April but the two men agreed to disagree on the way
forward.
Anastasiades said his Turkish Cypriot counterpart was “positive” about a
meeting under UN auspices.
“A meeting will be arranged through the UN in the coming days, depending
on the schedule,” he said after talks with UN chief of mission Elizabeth
Spehar.
Anastasiades said the meeting was not a signal that talks were resuming
on ending the island’s more than four-decade division.
“As leaders of the two communities, we will simply exchange ideas, our
thoughts, reflections, what the future holds, our prospects and how we can
finally achieve a solution that’s sustainable and functional,” he said.
The United Nations has made clear it will not fully engage in a new peace
process unless Cypriot leaders are committed to entering negotiations in a
spirit of compromise.
The last talks aimed at reunifying the island as a bi-zonal, bi-communal
federation collapsed in Switzerland after the UN chief failed to get the
parties to agree on post-settlement security arrangements.
It was the first time Cyprus talks had been joined by the island’s
guarantor powers Britain, Greece and Turkey.
When Cyprus became independent in 1960, the three powers were given
treaty rights to intervene to safeguard the island’s sovereignty.
The Greek Cypriots want those rights scrapped but Turkish Cypriots are
reluctant to do so, having endured armed attack and isolation in besieged
enclaves for a decade after Greek Cypriots unilaterally changed the
constitution in 1963.
The other stumbling block is the number of Turkish troops who will remain
on the island after a deal. Anastasiades wants all of them to leave,
something strongly opposed by Akinci.
The two leaders failed to revive reunification talks at a UN-hosted
informal dinner in April — their only meeting since the collapse of last
year’s peace conference.
The UN is reluctant to step in while the two sides remain so far apart on
core issues.
Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkish troops
invaded and occupied its northern third in response to a coup sponsored by
the military junta then in power in Athens seeking to unite the island with
Greece.
Tensions in the region increased after Anastasiades’s internationally
recognised government stepped up its search for offshore natural gas, a move
opposed by Turkey before a peace deal is agreed.
BSS/AFP/RY/1852 hrs