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Cyprus' Two Sides Asked to Concentrate on Concrete Ideas
The UN Secretary-General's Special Adviser for Cyprus Alvaro de Soto on Sunday urged the two communities of the divided island to concentrate on the concrete ideas put to them on the core issues of the Cyprus question.
Speaking to reporters on his arrival at the southern coastal Larnaca airport, de Soto said Secretary-General Kofi Annan, when meeting with the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders in Geneva last month, had personally invited the two sides to participate in the next round of Cyprus talks scheduled next January.
De Soto came here after visits to Athens and Ankara to discuss the Cyprus issue. He is scheduled to have separate meetings with Cypriot President and Greek Cypriot leader Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash on Monday.
The eastern Mediterranean island has remained divided into the Greek Cypriot-controlled south and the Turkish Cypriot-dominated north since the 1974 Turkish invasion in the wake of a failed coup in Nicosia seeking union with Greece.
The leaders of Cyprus' two sides have held five rounds of " proximity talks" under auspices of the United Nations in an effort to find a solution to the division of the island.
During the talks, the U.N. has given the two sides unofficial papers over the ideas on issues under discussion. The U.N. has set out the four core issues under discussion as security, the distribution of powers, property and territory.
The sixth round of the talks is scheduled to start on January 26, 2001.
According to the Cyprus News Agency, de Soto refrained from commenting on statements made by Denktash on the proximity talks, saying he has been reading press reports on them and looks forward to speaking to both the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders.
Denktash said in Ankara last week that the five rounds of the proximity talks were "a waste of time" and said he would not attend the sixth round of talks unless his breakaway state in northern Turkish Cypriot area is recognized.
The breakaway state, declared in 1983, is recognized only by Turkey, which stations 35,000 troops in northern Cyprus.
De Soto stressed that "we don't expect a quick resolution to the Cyprus problem...it is not going to be a matter of just a few months."
"It's not indefinite but certainly the parties should have the patience," he added.
During his four-day stay in the island, de Soto is also expected to meet the ambassadors of the five U.N. Security Council permanent members to Cyprus.
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