Things not so bleak, Christofias says

Just four days after complaining about lack of progress in the Cyprus negotiations, President Christofias yesterday spoke of an improvement, the Cyprus Mail reports.

“What I am saying is that things are not bleak, there are issues in which we have made progress and there are issues which are still open and there are disagreements,” Christofias said after meeting Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat yesterday. The UN Secretary-General's Special Adviser for Cyprus Alexander Downer also said that good progress was made at the meeting.

Downer said they would begin discussing the property issue on January 28, preceded by meetings between their aides on the issue. “Today’s discussion was about past acts, deadlock-resolving mechanisms and the hierarchy of norms, with a particular focus on deadlock-resolving mechanisms,” said. “This was a very positive meeting. Good progress was made… and it built on the one of Monday, which was also a very positive meeting.”

Downer repeated previous statements about “cautious optimism”, “the possibility of a real solution”, and “the difficult task” ahead.

“You need to maintain a momentum and you need to carry them through as fast as you can, always taking into account essentially, two things, the complexity of the issues, and there are very complex issues, very difficult issues on the one hand, and on the other hand, there are politically very sensitive issues as well,” he said.