Tassos Papadopoulos dies

Former President Tassos Papadopoulos passed away earlier today at the age of 74. He had been suffering from lung cancer and had been in intensive care since 22 November. He is to to have a state funeral on Monday. The Council of Ministers held an emergency session and decided that a three day period of mourning will be observed as from tomorrow, Tassos Papadopoulos served as President from 2003-2008.

The U.N. Secretary General’s Special Adviser for Cyprus, Alexander Downer, arrived back on the island yesterday stressing the importance of keeping up momentum in the Cyprus talks, the Cyprus Mail reports.“I have always said that there needs to be a momentum in the negotiations, so I hope that over the next couple of weeks between now and Christmas there will be good momentum bringing us to the Christmas break and into next year,” Downer said on arrival at Larnaca airport. He said there would be “difficult issues that will move more slowly” and easier issues that would move more quickly. “We should not underestimate how difficult it is to put together a constitution. This is a very, very challenging task, it’s a very big task and is an ambitious task and it is a worthy and important ambition,” he said. “The important thing is to keep the negotiations moving forward. But I think it is still moving forward okay.”Downer played down the continuing negative statements being by the two leaders outside of the negotiations. “What ultimately is going to be important is what happens in the negotiating room and that is not just between the leaders of course, but the representatives and the officials”, he said. “The test of this process is going to be the result and I think they can achieve a successful result”.

Downer had a working lunch with Presidential Commissioner George Iacovou during which they reviewed the course of the talks so far, and discussed alternative working methods. According to the Cyprus News Agency, Mr Iacovou and Mr Talat’s Adviser, Mr Ozdil Nami, will meet at 10 this morning, within the framework of recording the issues discussed by the two leaders in the talks and forming terminology, so that there is no misunderstanding, but an identical text. Three more issues in the chapter of Governance remain to be discussed by the leaders of the two communities, who will meet again on 16 Decemberwill attend the next meeting of the leaders on December 16.

Kibris reported yesterday that Turkish Cypriot leader, Mehmet Ali Talat, who is visiting Brussels, said he had asked European officials to encourage the Greek Cypriot side to be engaged in the solution of the Cyprus problem. He argued that although President Christofias says he wants a solution, this does not go beyond words and there are some things which should be done in order for this to go further than words. In statements at a press conference yesterday, Mr Talat accused Greece of using the Republic of Cyprus as a serious obstacle against Turkey behind the scenes, because it does not want to damage its relations with Ankara. He stated that he asked for technical assistance from the EU officials for the harmonization of the Turkish Cypriots with the acquis and their economic advancement. Mr Talat said that during his meetings with Jose Manuel Barosso and Javier Solana, President of the Commission and EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy respectively, told him that the two leaders in Cyprus have a “serious responsibility” to solve the problem. He also said he had asked for equal treatment on the Cyprus problem with the Greek Cypriots, equal in full sense.
Mr Talat said that he was in favour of solving the problem before the European Parliamentary elections, but claimed the Greek Cypriots have said they do not want this and put it into their agreement with Russia. He said he would like to see a timetable but did not see a similar wish on the part of the Greek Cypriots.