UN Secretary General`s Special Adviser on Cyprus Alexander Downer announced Tuesday that President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu will meet Ban Ki-moon in New York on the 30th and 31st of October, to discuss the progress in the UN-led talks aiming at reaching a solution of the Cyprus problem.
Downer said that the leaders, who met for about an hour on Tuesday, focused on the way they are going to address the next phase of the negotiations until the meeting in New York. He added that they discussed their approaches to the procedures and in the next meeting, scheduled for Friday, they will take that forward.
“The meeting was a procedural meeting. It was a meeting in order to work out the procedures for this process through October and they concluded the discussions”, he said.
He added that the leaders will be coming back with their approaches on Friday.
Asked whether there will be a change in the procedure, Downer said that this is a different phase.
“We have gone through it chapter by chapter, all of the agenda at least in relation to the core issues and now through this process they will be looking at them both individually and collectively between now and the end of the month”, he said.
Downer was also asked whether the talks will be affected after a report, published by a Commission of Inquiry which investigated the circumstances that led to July’s massive explosion, said that President Christofias has serious constitutional and personal responsibilities.
“The politics on either side are not really a matter of the UN and we don`t engage in that politics, even if politicians sometimes like to engage us. We don’t re-engage”, he said.
He added that the UN “naturally enough and appropriately enough” will always deal with the people who are in power.
“If others are asking them to resign, that has nothing to do with us. That’s an internal matter, it is not a matter of the UN, the UN has no role in any of that at all”, he said commenting the fact that the majority of Greek Cypriot political parties has asked the Cypriot President to resign after the publication of the report.
Asked whether he discussed the outcome of the report with President Christofias, Downer said that in the context of the meeting they certainly had no discussion about this issue. He added that this wasn’t an issue for these negotiations.
President Christofias rejected the Commission findings that he bears personal responsibility concerning the deadly blast at the naval base “Evaggelos Florakis”, at Mari, which killed 13 people, injured dozens and badly damaged the island’s main power plant. The President also said that he will not resign.
Following the blast, on July 11, the government appointed a Commission of Inquiry, headed by lawyer Polis Polyviou, to investigate the circumstances that led to the massive explosion of munitions, which killed 13 people and crippled the island’s main power station. The Commission was instructed to look into possible political responsibilities
The blast occurred in containers full of munitions, which Cyprus stored at the naval base, after confiscating the load from “Monchegorsk”, a vessel sailing from Iran to Syria in 2009. Cyprus was acting according to UN Security Council resolutions, imposing sanctions on Teheran.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern third. Peace talks are currently underway to find a negotiated settlement that will reunite the country, under a federal roof.
