Obama: Great opportunity to solve Cyprus problem

US President Barack Obama said on Thursday a great opportunity existed to resolve the Cyprus problem, as he pledged to work closely with Greece to achieve progress on the issue, the Cyprus Mail reports.

“There is a great opportunity, as we speak, for the decades-long conflict and tensions that exist in Cyprus to be resolved,” Obama said following a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in Washington DC. “I think we are both encouraged by the messages coming out the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities and we are going to be working very close together to see if we can make progress on those parts.”

Samaras said the two countries can work together in an effort to solve as many of the region’s problems as possible.

Those included the Cyprus problem, Samaras said, by exploiting the window of opportunity opened by the new proposals tabled by the Cypriot president.

Samaras was referring to Nicos Anastasiades’ proposal to see the return of the fenced-off part of Varosha to its inhabitants in return for allowing EU-supervised trade at the occupied Famagusta port.

The Greek Prime Minister had a telephone conversation yesterday evening during which he briefed Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades about his talks in Washington with the US President and the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, confirming the US strong interest in the Cyprus problem.

Turkish Cypriot leader, Dervis Eroglu has said that “new activity” is expected on the Cyprus issue in October and that if the Greek Cypriots do not break their promise, the negotiations should continue from the point where they had left off, Kibris reports. He added that starting from scratch would be tantamount to postponing a solution and playing with time, something that the UN should not allow to happen.

“In our view, telling the Turkish side to give Varosha and then we will talk, or we want this, we want that, is intransigent and arrogant”, he said.

He also said the Turkish Cypriots do not want to live under isolation and embargoes and will never abandon their right to self-administration, their sovereign rights, their land, their freedom and Turkey’s active and effective guarantees.

Meanwhile, Yeni Duzen reports that former Turkish Cypriot leader, Mehmet Ali Talat has said that no solution to the Cyprus problem could be reached as long as Dervis Eroglu is leader of the Turkish Cypriot community because he does not believe in a solution and never even mentions federation. He also said he did not believe that the negotiations will bring a result if they are not held at the level of the leaders. “The negotiator should be the president who is elected with the votes of the people”, he said.