Cyprus Talks Continues Non-stop More Than Nine Hours

NEW YORK - The third session of Cyprus talks held in New York, continues non-stop for more than nine hours.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and his special envoy for Cyprus Alvaro De Soto met separately with TRNC and Greek Cypriot delegations. U.N. officials also tried to make the sides come to an understanding by carrying out shuttle diplomacy between the sides.
Later tripartite meetings among U.N., TRNC and Greek Cypriot side started. As no fast progress was recorded in those talks, U.N. officials took diplomats coming from guarantor countries Turkey and Greece to separate rooms and asked them for help to facilitate the process.
Late at night, U.S. Cyprus Coordinator Thomas Weston and diplomats representing Britain and the EU also indirectly joined the negotiations. Alvaro De Soto submitted the documents prepared in a file to Weston and the accompanying diplomats.
Kofi Annan left the U.N. headquarters at 03.30 am (Turkish local time) and De Soto carried out the negotiations on his own. U.N. Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs Kieran Prendergast said while leaving U.N. headquarters that ''they (the sides) are going to stay as long as it takes.''
There is no information about the course of the negotiations so far as they are carried out in full secrecy.
(Öª-AÖ) 13.02.2004