Cyprus News Agency: News in English, 11-01-21

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From: The Cyprus News Agency at <http://www.cyna.org.cy>

CONTENTS

[01] DOWNER - CYPRUS TALKS

[02] PRESIDENT - CYPRUS TALKS

[03] FINLAND - CYPRUS ISSUE

[04] CMP - WORK - INTENSIFICATION

[01] DOWNER - CYPRUS TALKS

Downer noted that the Secretary General, during his upcoming meeting in Geneva with the leaders of the two communities in Cyprus, would be discussing ways to ensure that the process maintains good momentum.

Speaking after Friday`s meeting between the leaders of the two communities, President of the Republic of Cyprus Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu, Downer said ``the two leaders met for an hour-and-a-half or so today and had a bit of a discussion over coffee before the meeting and then, during the meeting, both sides made comments on governance and power sharing, and EU matters, about each other`s different proposals``, adding that ``there was an exchange of views on that.``.

Downer said that there was also ``a discussion on the modalities for the meeting with the Secretary General in Geneva and I also made some points about how this meeting will proceed.``

He noted that ``the plan for the meeting is that the Secretary General will meet the two leaders during the course of the morning on January 26 and they will discuss the core issues that constitute the negotiations on the Cyprus issue,`` adding that ``there will also be a working lunch, so they will continue the discussions during a meal and the process will conclude around 14:30.``

``As for next steps beyond that, that it is something the Secretary General will reflect on and discuss with the two leaders during the course of the meeting,`` he said, adding that ``the Secretary General wants to see the process maintain momentum, he wants to see good momentum in these negotiations.``

Downer pointed out that ``it is clear that what we do not want is the negotiations at any point to stall, for there to be, to use the language of the negotiations, deadlock.``

``We want the process to maintain good momentum and so he will be discussing with the leaders ways to ensure that that happens,`` Downer said.

Asked if there was any movement on what the Greek Cypriot side has described as troubling proposals, Downer said that he knows what the two sides have been saying and that ``we would not offer any comments on that at all.``

``They obviously had talks today on governance and power sharing issues, as well as EU issues, and they have exchanged views on that and proposals and have talked about each other`s proposals, so we would not offer any further enlightenment on that. That is a matter for them,`` he added.

Asked about his recent trip to Turkey and if there were any messages from the Turkish government, Downer said ``their messages are for them, not for me, I am not a messenger.``

He noted that he had ``a useful meeting for a couple of hours`` with Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Davutoglu and members of his team on Thursday.

``I was able to go through a whole range of different aspects of the Cyprus negotiations,`` he said, adding that ``the Turkish government has made it clear that it wants the negotiations to succeed, it wants to see the reunification of Cyprus as a federal system.``

He noted that ``Mr. Davutoglu made that perfectly clear to me,`` despite ``some debate about that`` over the years.

``We talked about some of the details and some of the ways forward and so we had a very constructive meeting. I thought it was extremely constructive,`` he added.

[02] PRESIDENT - CYPRUS TALKS

The President was speaking on his return to the Presidential Palace after a meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu, in the framework of the ongoing UN-led negotiations, with an aim to find a comprehensive solution to the Cyprus problem.

President Christofias and Eroglu met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on November 18 in New York and agreed to meet again in the presence of the UN chief at the end of January in Geneva.

[03] FINLAND - CYPRUS ISSUE

Halonen received on Thursday the credentials of the new Ambassador of Cyprus to Helsinki Filipps Kritiotis, with whom she discussed, during a meeting that followed, the relations of the two countries and latest developments in the problem of Cyprus, divided since the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974.

An official press release issued here said that Kritiotis conveyed Cyprus President Demetris Christofias warm regards to the President and the people of Finland.

[04] CMP - WORK - INTENSIFICATION

It added that since the inception of its exhumation program, the CMP has retrieved skeletal elements, which relate to more than 760 persons and has identified and returned to their families the remains of 263 individuals (209 Greek Cypriots and 54 Turkish Cypriots). The exhumation and identification work of the CMP is guided by scrupulous scientific processes and is based on internationally accepted standards and practices. Valuable advice is given by the Argentinean experts of EAAF and the ICRC, the press release noted.

``The investigations of the CMP are conducted in the sole interest of the families whose loved ones are missing (article V.1 of its Rules of Procedures) and whose pain and sensitivities must be respected by all. Its mandate is purely humanitarian: to establish the fate of missing persons. The Committee does not attempt to establish the cause of death or attribute responsibility for the death of missing persons (article 11 of its Terms of Reference). In order to respect the interests of all stakeholders and partners, the decisions at the CMP are taken by consensus of its three Members,`` the press release said.

According to the CMP, the families of over 1600 missing Cypriots from both communities are still waiting to learn the fate of their loved ones. ``Their pain is the pain of all Cypriots, their tragedy is the tragedy of the entire Cyprus, and all involved must join together to heal the wounds of the past, to do everything possible to bring closure to the families of the missing persons. Towards this end, CMP will strive very hard to expedite the whole process, in all its phases, so that we can produce even more results, without of course compromising on the quality of scientific analyses`` the press release added.

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