Cyprus' Direct Talks at Very Difficult Point: Government Spokesman

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, June 20, 2002

Cyprus' Direct Talks at Very Difficult Point: Government Spokesman

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The United Nations-sponsored direct talks between Cyprus' President Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash are at a very difficult point, a government spokesman said in Nicosia Wednesday.

"The direct talks are at a very difficult point," government spokesman Michalis Papapetrou said to reporters, when asked to comment on the reports that the talks have come to a halt with discussions focusing on what to deal with next.

The two leaders met on Tuesday and their next meeting will take place on coming Tuesday.

The U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's Special Adviser on Cyprus Alvaro de Soto will go back to New York, the United States, on June 28 to brief Annan on the course of the direct talks he is conducting on the island.

Cyprus has been divided into the Greek Cypriots-dominated south and the Turkish Cypriots-controlled north since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied the northern third of the Mediterraneanisland in the wake of an failed coup seeking union with Athens.

President Clerides and Denktash have started a United Nations-sponsored direct talks since January this year. So far no tangible results have emerged from the talks.

When visiting Cyprus in May, Annan asked them to come to an agreement in principle by the end of June on the four core issues: governance, security, territory and property.

The Turkish Cypriot side insists on its demand for two separate states in Cyprus and the Greek Cypriot side wishes to see Cyprus reunited under a bizonal bicommunal federation formula, and then joining the European Union.

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