Eroglu expresses his satisfaction after the Geneva meetingUnder the title: “We took a step”, Turkish Cypriot daily Gunes newspaper (08.07.11) reports that the Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu has said that he held a very productive and successful meeting yesterday with the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and President Christofias and that the view that a solution in Cyprus should be reached by the end of the year is predominant.

In statements yesterday after the tripartite meeting in Geneva, Eroglu expressed his satisfaction with the fact that the meaning bi-zonality from the property point of view was clarified with this meeting. Eroglu noted that the Turkish Cypriot side has taken a step on the issue of negotiating the territory without entering into the discussion of the map. He expressed the view that the process will gain acceleration by this “step”.

Noting that they would carry out intensified negotiations until October and that afterwards they would meet in New York, Eroglu said: “That is, even though the way of how the process will continue and what our next steps will be have not entirely been included in the official statement, these have indirectly come up. The Secretary-General will see the situation that will come up during the intensified process until October, he will see whether an agreement could be achieved and determine a road map for himself. However, in any case, I could say that the view of an agreement by the end of the year is predominant”.

Eroglu argued that they behaved positively, they put forward positive views for a viable agreement and the UN Secretary-General had a positive approach to all the proposals.

Eroglu alleged the following: “Christofias has been repeating very often that we oppose to the correlated discussion of the property with the territory. On both, in the latest report of the UN Secretary-General and in the negotiations it was agreed that the map will be the very last issue of discussion. However, for the sake of achieving progress in the territory, we said ‘we could discuss the other criteria of the property'”.

Eroglu said that the criteria in the territory are known. He noted that they are satisfied from the meeting in Geneva and argued that the UN liked the views of the Turkish Cypriot side.

“The important thing for us is that we are at a point of being able to see our future after this meeting”, he said.

Responding to a question, he said that they left the discussion of the map outside their proposal because the two leaders had agreed on this issue. He noted that “the map could be discussed during the last week when agreement is reached on all chapters”. “The Greek Cypriot side might have some wishes, but our effort is to reach an agreement which could be accepted by the Turkish Cypriot people”, he said.

Eroglu noted that the UN Secretary-General felt the need of referring to an international conference in case convergence is achieved in the chapters of the negotiations. Eroglu reiterated that this was a proposal made by the Turkish side in January and added that this was important for them.