The leaders of the two communities in Cyprus, President of the Republic Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat decided today to change the dates of the forthcoming intensive talks to begin on January 11.
Speaking after the meeting between the two leaders held Monday afternoon in the framework of direct negotiations for the solution of the Cyprus problem, the UN SG special envoy to Cyprus Alexander Downer said that the leaders decided to change the dates for the second week of the intensified talks.
Therefore, the leaders will meet on the 11th, 12th and 13th of January, while the second week of the intensive talks will be put back by one week.
Thus, Christofias and Talat will resume the intensive talks on the 25th, 26th and 27th of January instead of 18, 19 and 20 as initially was planned.
Downer noted that the representatives of the two leaders, George Iacovou and Ozdil Nami will meet during the course of the intervening week.
According to Downer, “the leaders feel that it would be a good idea to allow a little bit more time to the representatives” to discuss issues in the intervening week rather than to move too quickly from one week into the next of the intensive talks and “think that for logistical reasons it would be better to do it that way”.
Regarding today’s meeting, Downer stated that the leaders shared views on governance and power sharing as well as on EU matters in preparation for the intensive talks, adding that the representatives will meet tomorrow afternoon to discuss further EU matters.
Asked whether an early visit of UN SG Ban Ki-moon to Cyprus should be expected, the UN SG special envoy noted that he had some consultations with the UN SG about this during the course of last month and that they will be talking again soon.
“We will see how his schedule is like and how things are going,” he added, pointing out that this issue, i.e to look for an opportunity for the SG to visit Cyprus before too long, as he said, is something that is obviously on the UN agenda.
Replying to a question regarding the first issue that will be discussed during the intensive talks, Downer said that he is “not going to go into exactly how the agenda will play up”, and reiterated that during the intensive talks the focus will be very much on governance and power-sharing, the economy, EU matters and the property issue.
