UN-led talks on the Cyprus problem resume on Monday, with a meeting between Greek Cypriot negotiator Andreas Mavroyiannis and Turkish Cypriot negotiator Ozdil Nami.
According to sources, the negotiators and their teams met at 9am local time at the Old Nicosia Airport, in the UN buffer zone. They will discuss about their agenda and the schedule of their following meetings . Deputy Special Adviser of the UN Secretary General on Cyprus Elizabeth Spehar will convene their meeting.
Meanwhile, the UNSG`s Special Adviser on Cyprus Espen Barth Eide will hold meetings on Monday in Ankara with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and other officials. He will return to Cyprus on Monday evening.
According to the same sources, there are no meetings between Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci confirmed for this week.
Anastasiades and Akinci decided during a dinner hosted here by Eide on Thursday evening to immediately re-engage in their negotiations and instructed their negotiators to continue meeting in order to achieve further progress on all outstanding issues interdependently, while they (Anastasiades and Akinci) will also meet as required.
Furthermore they decided that they will meet in Geneva on the 9th of January 2017, on the 11th of January they will present their respective maps and that from the 12th of January, a Conference on Cyprus will be convened with the added participation of the guarantor powers, while other relevant parties shall be invited as needed.
The two leaders held in November two rounds of talks in Mont-Pelerin, Switzerland, focusing on the territory aspect of the Cyprus problem. The UN announced after the end of their talks that despite their best efforts, they were not able to achieve the necessary further convergences on criteria for territorial adjustment that would have paved the way for the last phase of the talks.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied 37% of its territory. Anastasiades and Akinci have been engaged in UN-led talks since May last year, with a view to reunite the island under a federal roof.
