Press Statement by President Talat and Pascoe Following Their Meeting on 17 June
Pascoe: ...Thank you very much. We had a good meeting. Today, I will be very general and tomorrow, I will have a press conference following my talks, in which you can ask me questions. Let me just say that I am here because the eyes of the world are very much on Cyprus. There is an enormous interest in the international community about the situation here. There is huge hope and expectation that the process will move forward rapidly and that there will be a solution to the Cyprus issue. There is certainly great hope following the statements of March 21 and May 23 between the leaders of the two sides, which of course we fully support and we fully support their leadership. We will try to do everything we can to help. So, the second thing I was trying to do here today is; one, to find out what is going on, where things stand, and the second, is how we can help to move the process forward. Thank you very much and as I said, I will be taking questions tomorrow.
Talat: Thank you very much. I am very glad to be with Mr. Pascoe today. We had a very fruitful discussion. As you know, we had concerns, we had some discussions very recently. So, I found the opportunity to raise all the issues with him. As I said, it was a very fruitful discussion and I understood that the UN continues to support the solution to the Cyprus problem. There is no change in the UN stance regarding the restrictions and isolations which Turkish Cypriots face. All these are encouraging for Turkish Cypriots and I want to reiterate once again that we count on the support of the United Nations. We will do our best, as the Turkish Cypriot side, to enter into a fruitful engagement and genuinely and constructively negotiate to find a comprehensive solution to the Cyprus problem based on the ideas which we agreed together with Mr. Christofias on 23 May 2008. So, our commitment continues. And we will do our best to reach a comprehensive solution.
Q&A
Q: It has been reported that there are some problems between the two sides. Do you have any assurances that these problems will be overcome? Or, what should be done to overcome these problems?
Talat: We have to look at what is being done in order to overcome these problems. And of course, this needs time. We have put forward what the problems and difficulties are. And we have received positive responses. We will see what will actually be done. Our target, as I say all the time, is to reach a comprehensive settlement. And for this, we need the support of the UN and we count on UN’s support.
Q: Will you be meeting with Mr. Christofias and Mr. Pascoe tonight?
Talat: I am afraid I will not be there.
Q: But you have been invited?
Talat: Yes
Why not?
Talat: This was my decision because of the many reasons I have explained before. These were also published in a Greek Cypriot newspaper... For the time being, I am afraid I will not be there.
Thank you very much.
Presidential Press Office