Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 17-02-03

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Eide says talks with Kotzias focused on security issues, March conference on Cyprus

[02] State arrears to the private sector fell significantly in December

[03] Court to decide on Tuesday whether to freeze DOL media group's assets

[01] Eide says talks with Kotzias focused on security issues, March conference on Cyprus

"We do not think it will be the last meeting, we think it's important to have at least one intermediate meeting, but it will be convened at a political level," the UN envoy said.

Eide also commented on "some complicated tensions in the relationship between Turkey and Greece" at the present time, noting that this was "a background setting that I would rather be without" but which should not be allowed to negatively affect the talks.

"I do think that if we all play our cards well we might actually see Cyprus as an arena for cooperation - not only between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots but also between Greece, Turkey and the other interested parties. So, rather than letting the talks be negatively affected by other surrounding issues we might actually see that it is a positive in broader regional developments. This is, at least, my ambition," he said.

Eide said he will be visiting Turkey next week and was in contact with the United Kingdom and the European Union in order to discuss the "modalities for the next convening of the conference."

He said his meeting with Kotzias had also provided an "opportunity to go through in detail some of the ideas we are developing on how to think about a new security framework for Cyprus, one which can be accepted and supported both by the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities but also by the guarantor powers, so that they can be part of the necessary change from what we have today to what we will have tomorrow."

While unable to share what had been discussed in detail, in order to preserve the confidentiality of the talks at this stage, Eide said he was encouraged, "particularly by the second session of the conference on Cyprus, which happened at the high civil servant level at Mont Pelerin a few weeks ago, which showed that there was a certain space for further discussions which we are elaborating in this particular visit."

[02] State arrears to the private sector fell significantly in December

A report on general government figures in December, released on Friday, showed the pending tax returns also fell to 1.226 billion euros in December from 1.440 billion in November and 1.612 billion in October.

State arrears to the social insurance organisations accounted for 2.024 billion euros in December, down from 2.373 billion in November, while state hospital debt fell to 450 million euros from 758 million, over the same period, respectively.

[03] Court to decide on Tuesday whether to freeze DOL media group's assets

In a court hearing on Friday, representatives of the four banks with outstanding loans to DOL requested the temporary halt of any liquidation of its assets in favour of other creditors. On their side, the group's employees asked the court to exempt a specific bank account where DOL's sale revenues and earnings are deposited, so they can receive part of their unpaid wages and ensure the viability of the newspapers.

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