A first round of specialist level talks in Mont Pelerin have ended on the security and guarantees issue, without any notable developments, SigmaLive has learnt on Wednesday.
The next meeting of specialists from the three guarantor powers (Greece, Turkey, and the UK) and the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot sides will be held at 10am (Cyprus time) on Thursday.
Today, the specialists – including representatives from the EU as an observer party – were expected to set out the questions to for discussion on the security issue.
Government spokesperson Nikos Christodoulides said that the discussions are expected to give answer to some of the questions relating to internal and external security, so a “working paper” could be set forth to allow discussions to continue at a political level.
The discussions on security and guarantees were opened at the Geneva-based Conference on Cyprus, which started on Thursday.
At the end of the conference a UN announcement said that discussions would continue at a technical level.
In the meantime, following the conference media reports suggested that Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias was the cause of the talks not continuing at a political level the next day.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that the Greek side needed more time to prepare.
However, Kotzias said that it was the Turkish side that abandoned the talks, citing other priorities.
The UN also released a statement that reports the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres did not want to meet with Kotzias were “not accurate”.
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