The UN Secretary General’s Special Adviser on Cyprus Alexander Downer has said the leaders’ meeting on Monday was unsuccessful and unproductive, and urged all involved to work harder to make sure the meetings are more productive and the process goes forward a bit better than it is at the moment.

He was speaking after being received by President of the Republic Demetris Christofias, an official statement said.

In his remarks Downer said that in the afternoon he would be meeting with the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community Dervis Eroglu.

Referring to yesterday’s meeting between the leaders of the two communities, he said that “it was an unsuccessful meeting, it was unproductive and we need to be working hard to make sure that not just the leaders’ meetings are more productive but that the whole process goes forward a bit better than it is at the moment. Obviously President Christofias and I had a good opportunity to compare notes about that and I think we have ideas and plans and lets hope that we can make it happen a bit better than it did yesterday.”

Asked about the ideas he mentioned and how will those speed up the process, Downer said that “it is not a question of speed, it is a question of success, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter whether it is fast or slow, it matters that there are gradual convergences. We had discussed some things that the two sides will be doing over the next few weeks, and hopefully by the time we get to Greentree we will have a lot more to show than what we have at the moment.”

Invited to comment on Britain’s position with regard to the resolution on UNFICYP by the Security Council, Downer said that “I don’t have any opinion at all about this. This is entirely a matter for the Security Council, it is not a matter for the Secretary General or for me and we are not part of the negotiation. This is entirely a matter that is negotiated between members of the Security Council and also, of course, the Cypriot Delegation in New York which is making its position very clear”.

He said he understands the different positions of the different players in this, “but this doesn’t really have any bearing on my work at all, it doesn’t affect the good offices. This is a resolution that relates to UNFICYP and this is a matter that is being negotiated between the members of the Security Council. So we just do what the Security Council asks us to do, we don’t tell the Security Council what they should put in their resolutions.”

The Security Council is expected to adopt a report on the renewal of the mandate of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) Wednesday, December 14.

Asked which side is responsible for the result of yesterday’s meeting between the two leaders, Downer said “we are not getting into that. That is not appropriate for us to start getting into all of that. We just hope that there will be more productive meetings in the future. But yesterday’s meeting was an unsuccessful meeting and between now and the Greentree meeting on the 22nd to the 24th (of January, 2012) we need better meetings than yesterday’s meeting. But we are not going to comment on the details of the meeting,” he concluded.