Papadopoulos: Turkish Cypriot side sought changes to July agreement

The Turkish Cypriot side sought to bring about changes to a UN-brokered agreement, it endorsed a year ago, demanding the immediate start of talks and restricting the role of the committees, which should be set up in line with the July 8th agreement, Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos said.
Speaking after a three hour long meeting with the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community Mehmet Ali Talat, Papadopoulos also said that the meeting took place in a “constructive spirit”, adding that “contacts through the UN will continue to find a way out of this current difficulty.”
“Mr Talat wanted to introduce changes to the Gambarri agreement, he wanted talks to begin immediately without the committees, or to restrict the role of the committees only to a technical level of noting down the titles of issues to be discussed, something which could not have accelerated the process but on the contrary it would have led to an early deadlock,” President Papadopoulos said on his return to the Presidential Palace, after his meeting with Talat at the residency of the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative Michael Moller.
Papadopoulos and Talat agreed on July 8 last year, in the presence of senior UN official Imbrahim Gambarri, to set up technical committees and working groups to discuss issues that affect the day to day life of the people and substantive issues of the question of Cyprus. Their top aides, Tasos Tzionis and Rasit Pertev, have held over 50 meetings in the past 14 months to this effect. So far, this has not been achieved.
The July agreement 2006 also provided for periodic meetings between Papadopoulos and Talat to help push the process forward.
“We discussed mainly the July agreement process, since this was the issue at hand. We insisted on its speedy and unconditional implementation because we believe this is a process that can push forward in a positive manner the talks towards a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus questions on a new basis,” the President pointed out.
“We believe that through our suggestions we would have shortened considerably the time needed leading to substantive talks and the solution of the Cyprus problem,” he said.
The Greek Cypriot side, he added, insisted a great deal that the committees should prepare the ground seriously and on condition that, as stipulated in the Gambarri process, progress is achieved at the level of the committees, the leaders of the two communities will meet periodically to negotiate the points of dissent which the committees will point out.
The President also said that Talat raised other issues, which were not part of the agenda but during discussions.
President said that the next step would be to start contacts with the United Nations and noted that “the Greek Cypriot side insisted that this is the right procedure, not a procedure that would fall outside the UN framework or the UN umbrella”.
Invited to comment on the lack of timeframes for the commencement of the Cyprus talks, President Papadopoulos expressed the view that discussions should not depend on the setting of dates, but rather on the progress achieved.
He said that the Greek Cypriot side insisted on the fact that the leaders’ meetings must be well prepared, in order to yield positive results and not lead to the formalization of the deadlock.
“What is the meaning of setting a date for a meeting without having prepared the ground for substantive talks? We do not favor talks which would extend for ever. The pace of discussions determines the timeframes”, he said.
President Papadopoulos wrote to Talat in early July this year inviting him to a meeting aiming at making headway for the implementation of the July 8th Agreement (Gambarri Agreement) they reached under UN auspices, which provides for setting up technical committees and working groups to deal with day to day issues as well as issues of substance of the Cyprus problem.