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Transcript of Remarks by Special Adviser of the Secretary-General Alexander Downer following the 6 August Meeting

''First of all, the leaders met this morning in a tête-á-tête session for about an hour and a half and after that in a full session with the United Nations discussed the issue of citizenship, aliens, immigration and asylum. They furthered the discussion on that and the leaders have asked me to on their behalf say a few words.
First of all they are very pleased to announce that the first reading has been now completed. So today was the last meeting of the first reading. Certainly, from the perspective of the United Nations, we would say that this is good progress, and it shows that there has been significant progress in these negotiations. The second reading will begin on September 3rd after leaders and officials have had a little bit of time off through August, and the first meeting of the second reading or the first meeting of the second round will focus on the issue of governance and in particular the executive. That will be the first issue that the leaders will discuss beginning from the 3rd September. Once they have finished discussing that issue, they will move to the question of property and then beyond property they will discuss other outstanding issues.

So as I said the leaders will be moving from now onwards into the second reading, revisiting areas where there have been points of disagreement and addressing and endeavouring to resolve those differences.

The last point I want to make is that the leaders have agreed that their representatives Mr. Iacovou and Mr. Nami should, with Mr. Zerihoun the Special Representative of the Secretary General, visit Limnitis and the visit will take place on Monday. Thank you. If you have any questions I would be happy to answer them.

Question: There was suggestion by the Turkish Cypriot side that the second round of talks should be held at the leaders’ level, at least various subjects. Is there any development concerning that?

Answer: Well, the leaders have agreed that what they will do is that they will discuss the issue of governance and power sharing and from their first meeting on the 3rd of September and the specific issue that they themselves will be focusing on will be the executive. The leaders obviously will have with them their representatives and of course it’s within the capacity of the leaders, should they wish, to allow their representatives to meet from time to time between the meetings of the leaders, to iron out other issues or do further work on the issues the leaders themselves have been discussing. That´s a matter that is at the discretion of the leaders, so anything is possible. We will have to wait and see when they meet what role they will want the representatives and other officials specifically to play in relation both to the executive and to other issues under chapter headings. OK? Thanks very much. "

UNFICYP