Ban calls for move to the endgame

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged the Cyprus leaders to move forward to the “endgame of negotiations” over the following two months, calling a new three-way summit for January.

“The sides have made some encouraging progress during these two days on some of the remaining core issues,” Ban said yesterday at the end of the talks on the Cyprus problem with the leaders of the two communities Demetris Christofias and Dervis Eroglu.

“This has given me confidence that a comprehensive settlement can be achieved. Both leaders have assured me that they believe that they can finalise a deal,” he added.

The leaders met Ban and senior UN officials in Long Island, New York on Sunday and Monday, the fourth such summit with the UN chief as part of ongoing reunification talks.

Despite the progress made, the UN chief acknowledged that “there is still work to be done”.
He said both leaders agreed that further efforts are essential over the next two months “to move to the end game of the negotiations”.

Ban said that by January he expects the internal aspects of the Cyprus problem to have been resolved “so that we can move to the multilateral conference shortly thereafter”.

Calling the two-day discussions “constructive and intensive”, Ban said considerable progress has been achieved in the areas of the economy, European Union matters and internal aspects of security.

“Much less progress was made in the important areas of governance, property, territory and citizenship,” he added.

President Christofias said yesterday no great progress was achieved during the meetings to allow for a turning point in the efforts for the solution of the Cyprus problem.

“Unfortunately, during the meeting it was not possible to make that great leap to allow for a turning point in the efforts to solve the Cyprus problem”. He said talks would henceforth focus on bridging the outstanding divergences between the two sides on the core issues.

“It will be tough, given the differences. Tough, but not unfeasible,” he noted.

“As long as the talks continue, we will show good will and we will be ready for a solution that will be agreed, be functional, based on principles and serve the best interests of all the people of Cyprus”, he underlined.

He also expressed the surprise the Greek Cypriot delegation had felt when on arrival in New York they discovered that proximity talks would be taking place, whereupon they lodged a complaint asking Ban to become personally and directly involved in the process.

The UN chief oversaw much of the discussion, Christofias said. He stressed that the UN did not engage in any mediation or arbitration attempts nor did it formulate bridging proposals.

Christofias said the Greek Cypriot side wanted a multilateral conference to be convened under UN auspices, with the participation of the five permanent members of the Security Council, the EU and the three guarantor powers.

But his reading of the UN chief’s statement was that such a conference would be held if the internal aspects of the Cyprus problem were first ironed out.

“Of course we want to come back here [in January]” he added. “Why are we conducting negotiations, after all? Is it to kill time?”

For his part, Eroglu appeared satisfied with Ban’s remarks, particularly the UN’s perceived intention to lead the talks into a final stage.

“After the January meeting, the staging of a conference would suggest we are coming to an end. As you know, from June next year south Cyprus will exercise the EU Presidency, and it will be hard to conduct negotiations during this time.”

In Nicosia, DIKO warned that it was clear the UN is working on a timetable to wrap up the talks, while main opposition party DISY called the outcome of the New York summit “disappointing.”

“It is clear that, without any substantive progress having been achieved, we are headed toward the conclusion of the negotiating process, with a very real danger of being faced with the dilemma of choosing between a collapse or a multilateral conference,” DISY leader Nikos Anastasiades said.