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[halil]

Transcript of Remarks by Special Adviser of the Secretary-General Alexander Downer following the meeting of Cyprus Leaders at UNFICYP Chief of Mission Residence, United Nations Protected Area, Nicosia, 8 September 2011

We had a pretty long meeting today focusing on exclusively the issue of property and working on the task of building core convergences on a series of issues in the property chapter. Now the Leaders will move on, on Monday, to discuss the question of citizenship, immigration and aliens, and they will also discuss that issue on Wednesday, and on Wednesday they have inserted an additional meeting because of a postponed meeting some weeks ago. Then there will be a further meeting on Friday, and at the meeting next Friday they will be discussing the issue of the economy. So, I think that is all really I have to tell you in the terms of the progress of the meeting today.

Question: Why did Christofias leave later?

Mr. Downer: I wanted to have a talk with him separately about another matter. So we had an opportunity to talk about some other things. That’s all. But he stayed behind at my request.

Question: You say they focused on property convergences. Did they have anything to say on this?

Mr. Downer: I have explained this before, we will have much more to say about how this process has gone when we get to the end of the process, and we are not going into details of it as we work it through. It is irritating, I know, for the media, and there will be many people in the public who want to know more about it. I am sympathetic with that, that’s entirely understood. But I also have a task of trying to help the Leaders get these negotiations to succeed so I have to take that into account as my primary task here. Therefore we are trying to be as discreet as we possibly can in terms of how the talks are going, whether there are convergences or aren’t. Of course, both sides are very familiar with each other’s positions after all these years. But they do come with new proposals to every meeting, and that is to be encouraged. I hope they will continue to do that and when we get to October we will have a look at some of these issues again. But in the meantime, we are going through this process chapter by chapter, and now we have completed the discussions in this phase on the property chapter. We move on from here to the citizenship, immigration and aliens’ chapter.

Question: Did you discuss with the Leaders about your talk with the Security Council last night?

Mr. Downer: I did. I informally did, and I just formally told the meeting, more or less, that I had had this discussion. Yes, I spent, I’m trying to remember how much time, about an hour and three quarters, or an hour and a half, with the Security Council last night Cyprus time, yesterday morning New York time. I gave them a briefing on the situation here. They had, of course, the written report of the Secretary-General, but I gave them a briefing on how this intensive phase of the negotiations was going. I made it very clear to the Security Council that, I make no predictions about what will happen, but an agreement on reunifying Cyprus is possible, it is certainly within the grasp of the Leaders. But to achieve it requires a lot of courage and a lot of determination, but it is possible. I think there was great interest, generally, in the Cyprus issue by the Security Council. All 15 members of the Security Council, that being the five permanent members, and the 10 non-permanent members, all spoke, some of them asking me questions, some of them very well informed and focused questions. And at the end of the briefing I did my best to respond to the issues they raised and to the questions they put to me. I have to say, coming out of it they are very supportive of this process. There is no member of the Security Council who is not supportive of this process, of the Secretary-General’s role and my role in endeavoring to help the process as best we can. They are anxious that the two Leaders succeed in these negotiations and this is important, because this is the premier diplomatic body of the world – the United Nations Security Council. People shouldn’t underestimate the importance of the strong support of the Security Council for the successful conclusions of these negotiations. I hope everybody understands that. There are other issues in the world that people are focusing on, this part is no so far from here; in Libya, of course, and elsewhere, these are the issues du jour. But that’s not to say that there isn’t a strong view on the Security Council that after 37 years, at least 37 years, since 1974, this issue must finally be resolved; through a successful reunification of Cyprus consistent with Security Council resolutions.

Question: Did the members of the Security Council raise the issue of natural gas…?

Mr. Downer: Yes. Quite a few raised questions in relation to natural gas; made statements, some of them made statements, some of them raised questions. That is a private meeting; I’m not going to get into what they said…

Question: Did they link the Cyprus issue with the issue of natural gas?

Mr. Downer: This was a briefing by me to the Security Council on Cyprus, and during the course of this meeting the issue of natural gas was discussed.

http://www.unficyp.org/nqcontent.cfm?a_ ... ic&lang=l1

[kurupetos]

The natural gas belongs to Cypriots. B*gger off Turkey!