UN Special Advisor on Cyprus, Espen Barth Eide, told CNA English today that he did not exclude the possibility of President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci addressing the Security Council soon.
“They can do that, and maybe at some stage it might be a good idea,” outlined the UN official.
Eide told CNA that the Security Council’s role on Cyprus is “extremely important”, with it being informed about developments concerning the settlement talks on a regular basis.
“They [the Security Council] are relevant and they will be relevant when there is a deal,” said Eide.
“But there is no tradition of having the Security Council as a member of a Conference,” outlined Eide, referring to this month’s Geneva-based Conference on Cyprus.
“IT DOESN’T HAPPEN”
“There is no precedent for asking the Security Council to any Conference of this sort, because it will lose its status,” Eide said.
“Their status is here, in this room [UN’s New York headquarters], acting like the Security Council, not hanging in other peoples’ conferences.”
Commenting on why the Council was not invited to be present as an ‘observer’ at the Conference on Cyprus, as the EU did, Eide said: “Where is the precedent for that? It doesn’t happen.”
The ex-Norway Foreign Minister insisted that all participants have agreed to this format.
“It wasn’t me deciding it; it was agreed between all the participants. All the field participants think this is the right format,” affirmed Eide.
SOLUTIONS, NOT PROBLEMS
The UN Special Advisor added that talks “will be challenging” and that he feels “there is a will by everybody – Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Turkey, Greece and the UK, supported by the EU – to look for solutions, rather than problems.”
Eide reaffirmed his view that the security and guarantees issue is a complex one because “the two sides want different things; one seeks the removal of the troops and the guarantees and other for them to remain.”
Eide added: “We need to think outside the box and find other formulas that entail enough change for this to be perceived as real positive movement forward for the Greek Cypriots.”
The UN Special Advisor continued: “At the same time [we need to] reassure the Turkish Cypriots that the implementation will happen and it will be safe and secure for them.”
“TIME IS RIPE”
Eide rejected reports that Turkey regretted the acceptance of the Conference’s format to be open-ended and that Ankara wants to rush things to a close.
“I don’t have this sense at all,” he said. “I think all players would like to close it when time is ripe. It’s currently not necessarily Turkey that is mostly eager to rush it, because they also have some questions they have to answer.”
Eide underlined that all sides have the same view on this issue, “to solve it as soon as we can but not sooner.”
“We have to do it properly,” he warned
NEGOTIATING “TABLES”
On when the Conference will officially reconvene at a top political level, Eide said that there is “no date, but it will be after a few weeks, rather than months.”
“We had a successful second session in Mont Pelerin [last week] and they agreed to go back and report to their principles at home,” stated Eide.
“We will be consulting with them in the coming days and we will hopefully get the date out of that.”
Eide also clarified that when speaking to the press after the Council’s meeting earlier this week, when he said “everything is on the table”, what he really meant to say was “tables”.
“There is still a table that is for the leaders and the negotiators,” clarified Eide. “The guarantors are in agreement that those issues concerning only Cyprus should be dealt by the Cypriots. Then you have the bigger table of the five-party Conference – the two are related.
“There is an interrelationship between the tables, but they are not the same table.”
Source: CNA English
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