EROGLU: “NOWHERE COULD BE REACHED AFTER 1ST OF JULY”

President of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Dervish Eroglu reiterated, nowhere could be reached with the Cyprus talks after 1st of July, the date when the Greek Cypriot Side will take over the EU Term Presidency, and added that, they expressed their considerations during the meeting held with Greek Cypriot Leader Demetris Christofias yesterday.

He also stressed that, they could not get the supposed result on the 6 months long discussed “Property” chapter, because of the “I don’t discuss property if I do not know what I will get on the issue of territory” attitude of Greek Cypriot side.

Returning to the Presidency after the meeting with Christofias, Eroglu gave a short briefing to the press.

Saying, they again had handled the issue of “Property” and both sides had expressed their ideas on that chapter, Eroglu added that “In spite of some disagreements, we will come together next Thursday to see whether a convergence can be obtained”.

He also said Special Representatives would meet at 16:00 hours on Monday and try to complete the study on “property”.

CYPRUS PROGRESS REPORT DUE END OF NEXT WEEK

Special Advisor of United Nations Secretary General (UNSG), will be preparing his important report on the progress of Cyprus Talks, which the secretary general will base his decision, on March 30th.

Alexander Downer the special advisor will be meeting the secretary general in mid April to discuss the report which the secretary general will draw up his decision whether to call for multilateral conference, with the guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey and UK.

Downer, had responded to the questions of the journalists outside the official residence of the special envoy of UNSG in UN controlled area, where TRNC President Dervish Eroglu and Greek Cypriot Leader Demetris Christofias have spent about an hour and a half trying to achieve a breakthrough on the property issue, one of the outstanding issues between the sides.

Reminded of his statement after he met the head of Greek Cypriot administration that if a multilateral conference was to be held on the outstanding core issues, “Property and Election” of the executive had to be “resolved”. Downer said, “A multilateral conference will be called by the UNSG if my report is positive… Let me be frank, there need to be convergences on core issues particularly on Governance and Power Sharing and Property”.

He said, If the report due end of next week was to be negative; the secretary general would decide what to do next together with himself.

Downer said that, “he would not write the report prematurely and a week in politics was a long time”.

KUCUK: ‘WE ARE NOT HOPEFUL FOR A SOLUTION’

Expressing that there is not a serious development in the negotiations because of the attitude of Greek Cypriot side, Prime Minister Irsen Kucuk said that this development is not enough for reaching a solution and unification of Cyprus.

Adding that we have entered into a critical point, Prime Minister Kucuk said that President Eroglu has been continuing negotiations in Cyprus to find a solution before 1 July with the initiatives of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. Underlining that President Eroglu and Ankara government were worried because there is not any change in the attitude of Greek Cypriot Administration for reaching a settlement in Cyprus.’ Even, we as the TRNC and Ankara government made warnings for postponing of EU Term Presidency but Greek Cypriot side is advancing towards EU Term Presidency step by step’ Kucuk added.

Moreover, mentioning the exploration of natural gas and petrol of Greek Cypriot side, Kucuk said that studies have been continuing and warnings made to the South Cyprus have not taken into consideration.