Crunch time for Cyprus. Representatives of the guarantor powers Greece, Turkey and Britain will join Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish-Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci on Thursday for crucial talks.
The UN says are the best chance to reunify the island after four decades of division.
Guarantor powers will be represented at Foreign Minister level with Nikos Kotzias (GR), Ahmet Cavusoglu (TR) and Boris Johnson (UK). The foreign ministers are to discuss security parameters of any deal.
Present will be also European Commission President jean-Claude Juncker with “observer status.”
The crucial conference will start at 11:15 a.m local time at UN’s Council Chamber in Geneva, Switzerland, and conclude at 13:00.
A press statement by the General secretary of United Nations, Antonio Guterres is scheduled at 14:45 in the presence of Anastasiades and Akinci.
The second round of the conference is scheduled to begin at 18:00.
On Wednesday, the two sides exchanged maps outlining rival proposals for territorial boundaries in a groundbreaking move diplomats hope could form part of a deal ending decades of division.
The top-level meeting between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots in Geneva is “the first time since 1976 where maps have being exchanged, “Cyprus’ government spokesman Nikos Christodoulides told reporters. It is “an important development” he added noting that there are “no reasons to justify” interrupting the talks. “It’s the start of the negotiations,”
Presented, submitted and then sealed in a United Nations vault, territorial adjustments form an integral part of solving the decades-old Cyprus conflict which has kept Greece and Turkey at loggerheads and obstructs Turkey’s membership bid to the European Union.
Rival sides did not disclose detail. Both maps will form the basis for more intensive discussions on defining boundaries.
However, media reported that the Turkish-Cypriot side wants 29.2%, while the Greek Cypriots are willing to offer 28.2%.
The Greek Cypriot side has already stated that it is not entirely happy with the offer from the Turkish Cypriot side but the UN are instead preferring to look at the positives and the historic process of maps actually changing hands.
“Never before have we had an exchange of maps, or a presentation of maps, created by the delegations themselves,” Espen Barth Eide, the United Nations envoy for Cyprus, said before the handover.
British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said solution to the Cyprus problem is within reach.
Point is: Greek Cypriots made the biggest compromise and accepted that they have lost the north part of the island.
Question is: whether also Turkey and President Erdogan would be willing to move in the right direction for a solution. for the time being, nobody is pushing Ankara for anything.
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PS Reunification with the long arm of Turkey in Cyprus? I don’t think so. It’s a matter of semantics…
It’s hard to see what anyone in his sane mind would ‘negotiate’ here, when there is an army of occupation camped on illegally siezed territory for decades now. Any ‘negotiation’ is merely legitimizing the crime, and our shame is allowing ourselves to be bullied into accepting such a thing by our so-called friends and allies.
Total removal of invasion forces, departure of all those ‘colonists’ who came after 1974, return of all stolen property, and compensation for lost lives and property, and the rejoining of the north to rest of the country with the pre-74 residents as normal regular citizens as before, that is the only basis for renormalization of relations.