Cyprob negotiators focus on property issues

Talks on the Cyprus problem continued with discussions on property, the legislature and the executive on Wednesday.

According to a statement by Spokesperson of the UN Good Offices Mission in Cyprus Michel Bonnardeaux, the two negotiators “exchanged written proposals on different matters and they also agreed that they will meet again on Saturday, June 14.”

“In the meantime, a meeting of the property experts of the two sides will take place,” Bonnardeaux said.

Government spokesman Nikos Christodoulides said that Mavroyiannis and Ozersay discussed the property issue, the legislative and the executive powers.

He added that the two negotiators also exchanged views on the next steps. Christodoulides said the Greek Cypriot side submitted a document on European Union issues and the Turkish Cypriot side a document on the legislative power.

He noted that at their next meeting, the negotiators will discuss EU-related matters, citizenship, central government powers as well as the preparation of the leaders’ next meeting on June 23.

Moreover, the Cyprus Mail reports that Mr Christodoulides said that before moving on to the give and take phase of reunification talks, the two communities must submit their positions on all core issues, as the Turkish Cypriot side insisted that no concession could be made on the rotating presidency.

Christodoulides said the second phase of the talks was aimed at finding common ground between the two sides and minimising differences in a bid to move on to the give and take phase of the talks.


He said the the UN statement after the Anastasiades-Eroglu meeting on Monday, that the two sides had agreed to “submit and to continue submitting proposals on all core issues, as well as to conclude this phase as soon as possible”, satisfied the Greek Cypriot position of discussing interrelated matters at the same time “and not just focus on issues like governance that mainly interest the Turkish Cypriot side.”


On Monday Eroglu said the two sides had differences on issues where there had previously been agreement.
 “The Greek Cypriots,” he said, “want the president to always be Greek Cypriot and the vice president Turkish Cypriot instead of having rotating presidency.”


Rotating presidency had been put on the table by former President Demetris Christofias on condition that Turkish Cypriots accepted cross-voting.
 Eroglu rejects cross-voting but he reiterated on Tuesday that rotating presidency was necessary for his side and no concessions could be made.


Toumazos Tselepis, former ruling party AKEL’s head of the Cyprus desk, said Eroglu’s reaction was laughable, as it was a fact that rotating presidency had been on the table since the beginning of the 90s and it was also a fact that it was among the agreements between Christofias and former Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat as a package with cross-voting.

“It was Eroglu himself who then rejected cross-voting,” Tselepis said, adding that the results of Monday’s meeting were not encouraging, what with Eroglu on the one hand declaring that he was in a hurry and on the other hand being unable to realise what is self evident.


“For the negotiating process to proceed to the third phase all chapters and their aspects must be first discussed in detail, including territory, settlers, and security,” Tselepis said.

Ozersay: a geographical map for a road map

Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris Postasi reports that the Turkish Cypriot negotiator Kudret Ozersay, speaking to the press after the negotiators meeting, said that the Turkish Cypriot side is ready to negotiate land adjustments as soon as soon as a roadmap leading to a referendum is agreed on.

Ozersay claimed that if the Greek Cypriot side is also willing, the process leading to a referendum can start without any delay.

He added, however, that if the Greek Cypriot side tables proposals that deviate from the agreed conversions, such proposals will be ignored by the Turkish Cypriot side.

“This was made clear to the Greek Cypriot side today,” he said.

Ozersay said that “property and federal executive issues were discussed and new proposals on federal legislative and the EU were put forward. After that, several ideas regarding the timeline of the process and when and how we can proceed to the next phase were exchanged.”

“We submitted a proposal on the property issue during our last meeting and today the Greek Cypriot side shared their opinions regarding that proposal and we asked some questions about their proposal. Today we agreed that the property experts meeting where the property issue will be elaborated in detail will take place next week,” he said.

He also said that the Turkish Cypriot side had presented a proposal on federal legislative while the Greek Cypriot side had put forward a proposal on the EU issue.

Ozersay said that as a half century old conflict, the Cyprus problem is a challenging one and that the process requires lot of goodwill and effort.

“The presence of a road map is very essential in this process in order to achieve some progress. We have to move forward despite certain challenges”, he added.

Nami: The Turkish side insists on the rotating presidency

Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris reports that Turkish Cypriot Foreign Minister Ozdil Nami, has said that the Turkish Cypriot side cannot accept the proposal that the president in a possible partnership state should only come from the Greek Cypriot community so insist on a rotating presidency.

Nami added that he has become pessimistic after the recent meeting between the two leaders.

Nami said that “significant progress” had been achieved in the past in the chapters on government and power sharing, the EU and economy but the fact that the past convergences’ papers have not been properly used at the negotiating table is an indication of the “deep disagreements between the sides”.

“The convergences had been formed under the UN supervision. Therefore, the UN should defend them”, he said, adding that as long as President Anastasiades continues not to accept the past convergences, it is not possible for the negotiations to go well.

Moreover, he said that the submission of a proposal by the Greek Cypriot side saying that the president of the partnership state should be elected by a simple majority is an indication that the climate at the negotiating table “is not good at all”.

Nami went on and claimed that US Vice President’s visit “was wasted” because the Greek Cypriot side’s efforts were directed towards issues such as Varosha.

Experts at failed negotiations

An editorial in the Cyprus Mail says it is very difficult to say what is actually going on, if anything, at the Cyprus talks. Monday’s long meeting between President Anastasiades and Dervis Eroglu, which was supposed to have cleared things up, added to the general confusion, giving the impression that the two sides are on a different wavelength, each pursuing its own agenda regardless.

The paper says that the meeting of the two leaders, rather than help the talks move faster, seem to have achieved the exact opposite, with the two leaders introducing new areas of disagreement, both in relation to procedure and substance.

As we depend on the information given out selectively by both sides we cannot reach any safe conclusions, especially as what we hear regularly changes. To start with, it was reported that Eroglu rejected the Talat-Christofias convergences and wanted the talks to start from scratch. But did Anastasiades accept the convergences? Not all of them, because on Monday he expressed his opposition to the rotating presidency and reportedly made a ‘president and vice-president’ proposal that was unacceptable to Eroglu.

Then there is the issue of the procedure, with Anastasiades demanding the submission of proposals on all chapters of the Cyprus problem including territory and security and Eroglu refusing to do so. Without this being done it is not possible to move to the third phase of the process which is supposed to be the ‘give and take’ negotiations, at which stage the settlement would supposedly be finalised.

But it does not appear likely the third phase will arrive any time soon as the two sides have agreed on more time-consuming issues such as the return to the idea of the technical committees. Apparently, a committee would now be set up to discuss issues relating to the EU, which had to be agreed in the past and are not an issue because the European Commission has made it clear it would accept anything the two sides agreed.

The problem, the paper conclueds, is that the two sides do not seem prepared to agree on anything, which was why they were back at their default position – the blame game – in the last few days. How many more times do we have to hear about the Greek Cypriots ignoring the facts on the ground and Turkish Cypriots being intransigent? Many more, we are afraid, because, as we all know, both sides have acquired an expertise in failed negotiations.