UN Secretary General’s Special Adviser on the Cyprus issue Alexander Downer has said that the meeting he had with President of the Republic Demetris Christofias on Wednesday afternoon was very interesting, very friendly and constructive.

In a brief statement he made to the press after the meeting, which lasted almost an hour and a half, Downer said that it was “an opportunity for us to review where we are at in the negotiations and obviously make preparations for the meeting tomorrow”, adding that “I met Mr. Eroglu earlier today”.

“We not only reviewed where we are at in terms of the talks for tomorrow but the general direction of the talks and so it was a very interesting, a very friendly and constructive meeting”, he noted.

Replying to a question on whether the gap on the governance issue was narrowed in view of the fact that it is the subject matter of tomorrow’s meeting between the two leaders, Downer said that “the point is not narrowing the gap, the point is bridging the gap”.

“We need to try and get agreement on the core issues”, he said, adding that “there have of course been some convergences on core issues in the past but we need to build convergences on the other core issues as soon as we reasonably can”.