Momentum must be maintained

UN Special Adviser Alexander Downer said after a meeting he had with the UN Security Council on Monday presenting the latest progress report on Cyprus that “nothing dramatic” came out of the meeting but that everyone agreed that “it’s important to maintain momentum”.

“There aren’t specific timelines but it is important that it (the process) does maintain momentum, continues to move forward and constructively”, he said..

The Australian diplomat noted that this Friday is the 100th meeting between the leaders of the two communities, since the process started in 2008 and was an opportunity “for everybody to reflect on how they feel it’s gone over those previous ninety nine meetings and our view is that it will be important that that meeting and subsequent meetings continue to build momentum towards an agreement difficult as that may be”.

Asked when UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon planned on meeting the two leaders again, Downer said this depended on how much progress had been made by the end of the month. He said the UN S-G would get in touch with them in late March to discuss “whether it will be worth his while having another meeting with them” in early April.

Asked what he expected would be accomplished with the meetings between UN experts and representatives of the two sides on property, Downer said this was simply an opportunity for both sides to listen to experts for ideas or at least run their own ideas past experts and hear their opinions.

“There are a whole range of different issues here. If you’re going to set up a system of compensation with bonds or guaranteed financial entitlements, which is the Turkish Cypriot alternative to the Greek Cypriot proposal of bonds, they have to be sellable, (they) have to raise the money. People are not going to rush into a property settlement if they don’t think there’s any money,” he said.

The aim was to provide assistance, he said noting, “As I said to the Security Council, we in the UN Secretariat can’t want an agreement more than the Cypriots and Cypriot leaders want it.”

He explained that the experts understand how all these things work, they didn’t try to impose on them some particular plan or point of view, they just explained issues to them when asked to explain them.

He added that he believed that the Greek Cypriots found the discussions they had with the experts “very helpful, very informative and very interesting”.
“So I heard that the meetings have gone pretty well and the Turkish Cypriots have meetings as well at the end of this week, so I will see how those go”, he said.

Downer emphasised that, as he had also told the Security Council, “the important thing to remember is that we, the United Nations, we can’t want an agreement in Cyprus more than the Cypriots want it and the Cypriot leaders want it. We can’t want it more than they do. We can provide assistance and help of one kind or another as they ask for it. But at the end of the day it’s up to them, it’s not up to us, it’s up to them”.