UNSG Special Adviser on Cyprus Alexander Downer announced on Thursday that he will be traveling to Turkey to discuss with the Turkish FM the Cyprus issue as well as the upcoming meeting of the SG with the two community leaders on July 7.

Speaking to the press after today’s meeting of the two leaders, Cyprus President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot community leader Dervis Eroglu, Downer said he will be traveling to Turkey on Friday, noting that “it is a good time for the Turkish government to meet with the UN to talk about the issue of Cyprus and the pace of the negotiations here, particularly in advance of the meeting in Geneva with the SG”.

Downer said that on Thursday the leaders exchanged views about the meeting with the SG as well as various aspects of governance and power sharing, including the treaty making capacity of the federal government in a united Cyprus and the capacity of the state to make international agreements.

Invited by the press to give more details about the meeting with the Turkish FM Ahmet Davutoglu, Downer said that it will focus on two aspects of the process, “the policy questions, the differences there are between the two sides particularly on core issues, and the importance of those differences being bridged and secondly on the meeting that SG is going to have with the two sides”.

The UN official noted that “we are obviously enthusiastic to share our views with Turkey as well as Greece and the diplomatic community more generally about how that meeting should be conducted and the way forward after that meeting”.

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