A senior United Nations announced Friday that the two community leaders in Cyprus have agreed to meet on Saturday, despite earlier indications that a joint meeting would not take place.
Speaking after a second meeting in two days with Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos, UN Undersecretary General for political affairs Ibrahim Gambari said the idea is to “really find ways of moving forward.”
Gambari had separate meetings with Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat on Thursday and said that after concluding his meetings on the island, he would report back to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan about whether the launch of UN-led talks to reunite the island will be possible any time soon.
Gambari, who was accompanied during his meetings with other political party leaders by UN chief of mission Michael Moller, said “as you know, I am here to have a series of conversations and consultations which I have had during the course of my first visit here. And those conversations will continue.”
“They are very useful proposals, we are considering them and in my judgment, I believe that the proposals contain elements that will answer the possibility of further discussions together,” he said.
Papadopoulos and Talat met for the first time in two years on Monday, but statements by both sides made it clear that there is still wide disagreement about how working committees should be structured to resume substantial talks.
Papadopoulos and Talat discussed the issue of persons missing since intercommunal fighting started in 1963-64 and the Turkish invasion in 1974 with the fate of some 1500 Greek Cypriots and 600 Turkish Cypriots remaining unknown.
The Greek Cypriot government has offered 200,000 Cyprus pounds (344,000 euros) to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to help in exhumations and the identification of human remains that has already started on both sides of the dividing line.
Since September 2005, the Greek Cypriot government has contributed 400,000 Cyprus pounds to the international effort which has seen some 150 remains identified through their DNA, but both Papadopoulos and Talat appealed for “urgent and generous contributions” to help the exhumation and identification work.
