Cyprus-Forum.com

[repulsewarrior]

Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides will meet today in Washington his US counterpart John Kerry to brief him on the latest developments in the Cyprus question.
Top issue on the agenda is the Confidence Building Measures and how they can contribute to the negotiating process, in the light of the upcoming visit of US Vice President Joe Biden to Cyprus on the 21st of May.


Biden is expected to announce during his visit to the island the funding of a master plan for the wider region of the Turkish occupied town of Famagusta, the inspection by experts of the fenced off area of Famagusta, known as Varosha, as well as the clearance of three mine fields.

(CNA) CBMs top the agenda at Kasoulides - Kerry meeting in Washington
CNA - NICOSIA 13/5/2014 09:20
http://www.cna.org.cy/webnewsEN.asp?a=b ... 55d225b947

[kurupetos]

More BS...

[repulsewarrior]

Property issue tops Cyprus peace talks today
FAMAGUSTA GAZETTE • Tuesday, 20 May, 2014
Τhe property issue, the federal list of competencies, the federal executive and external relations will be discussed at a meeting of the negotiators of the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot sides, Andreas Mavroyiannis and Kudret Ozersay this morning.

Mavroyiannis and Ozersay met last Tuesday, when the Turkish Cypriot side submitted a document on the competencies of the Central Government.

Both sides submitted a paper on external relations. They also discussed the property issue. — (FG/Agencies)

[repulsewarrior]

cyprus42088.html

...Biden's visit covered here.

[kurupetos]

http://www.cyprus-forum.com/cyprus42088.html

...Biden's visit covered here.

Cy problem solved? Not!

[repulsewarrior]

By George Psyllides
PRESIDENT Nicos Anastasiades made it clear to Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu on Monday that there must be proposals from both sides on all core issues of the Cyprus problem, as the two sides agreed to conclude the current phase of talks as soon as possible.
The proposals must then be discussed and convergences achieved before the ongoing reunification talks can move to the third phase.
Eroglu said the two sides disagreed on matters previously agreed with former president Demetris Christofias.
Unnamed sources cited by the Cyprus News Agency said that the meeting which lasted over three hours was “difficult”.
Anastasiades, they said, made it clear that there was no chance talks would enter the third phase if proposals on all aspects of all the core issues were not submitted reviewed and common ground was found.
The president said he was ready to submit proposals by August.
Anastasiades referred in particular to territory, noting that it constitutes one of the most important aspects for Greek Cypriots.
The same sources say that the greatest part of the meeting was spent discussing this as well as the EU`s role in the process.
The Turkish Cypriot side appeared negative on territory until, with the UN’s contribution, it was agreed to include in a statement read after the meeting by UN Special Representative Lisa Buttenheim, a phrase that states that the two leaders agreed “to submit and to continue submitting proposals on all core issues, as well as to conclude this phase as soon as possible”.
President Anastasiades also proposed to establish four new technical committees, namely, a committee on commerce and industry, a trade unions committee, a committee on reconstruction and resettlement and an EU committee.
The Turkish Cypriot leader said that he would rather that existing technical committees resume their work.
As regards the establishment of new ones, he said he would discuss the matter with his side before replying.
The sources said Greek Cypriot members of all technical committees, headed by Ambassador Andreas Pirishis, will be announced within the next few days.
The Turkish Cypriot side was negative on the creation of an EU technical committee, a matter which was discussed at length during the meeting, the sources said.
President Anastasiades is said to have explained that the leaders would not be bound by the technical committee, but rather that it would be helpful if they were aware of whether certain proposals were in line with the EU acquis communitaire.
Eroglu said the two sides had differences on issues where there was agreement before.
The Turkish Cypriot leader said Greek Cypriots have a different view as regards the election of the president, governance and division of power.
The Greek Cypriots, he said, want the president to always be Greek Cypriot and the vice president Turkish Cypriot.
It is understood that Eroglu was referring to the rotating presidency, which Christofias had tabled on condition that Turkish Cypriots also accepted cross-voting, which they did not.
The two leaders will meet again on June 23 and July 7.

http://cyprus-mail.com/2014/06/02/leade ... alks-soon/

[Geoff1131]

Well if the last paragraph above is correct. ' The Greek Cypriots, he said, want the President to ALWAYS be Greek Cypriot and the vice President Turkish Cypriot ' it is no wonder a solution cannot be found. It seems that the best man for the job could be overlooked if he happens to be of Turkish Cypriot background. What a mess.

[repulsewarrior]

http://www.kpdailynews.com/index.php/ca ... LOCAL_NEWS

http://www.hri.org/news/cyprus/tcpr/201 ... .tcpr.html

for the record I have included two links not exactly the same...

...some quotes:

Commenting on the allegations that Meyer will undertake the duties of the former UN Special Envoy Alexander Downer, Ozersay said that is very early to say something about this.

Stating that they did not touch upon the issue of primary law and derogations at the meeting, the Turkish Cypriot negotiator said “we discussed in detail how decisions within the EU will be taken, how the new partnership will join the EU, what kind of a role the founding states within the united federal Cyprus will play in these decisions, which issues will fall under the jurisdiction of which state and how at times the ministers of the founding states will be representing the united Cyprus within EU institutions instead of the federal government”.

Ozersay went on and said that during yesterday's meeting, the Greek Cypriot side submitted a proposal regarding the "transitional period", while, the Turkish Cypriot side submitted a proposal on the "settlement issue" after the solution.

One of the issues discussed during yesterday's meeting was the agenda of the meeting of the two leaders that will take place on Friday, July 4, as well as the agenda of the two negotiators meeting which is to take place on July 9.

Regarding the negotiators' meeting on Wednesday, July 9, Ozersay said that the Turkish Cypriot side is expected to submit a proposal about the implementation of the "transitional period" and the issue of "police", on matters where convergences were not reached in the past. The Greek Cypriot side, as Ozersay said, is expected to submit proposals on the "citizenship issue".

...welcome Geoff1131

[repulsewarrior]

...the leaders meet:

Anastasiades also proposed that each side prepares a list of all aspects and of pinpointing where each feels there are
convergences, where the two sides are close to a convergence and where they have substantial differences.

The Turkish Cypriot leader is said to have replied that he will think about it.

Anastasiades also urged that all sides should avoid a “blame game” approach in their public statements.

One thing Anastasiades and Eroglu agreed on was to jointly visit the forensic lab of the Committee on Missing Persons that has been identifying the remains of war victims from both communities.

“The leaders agreed to jointly visit the anthropological laboratory of the Committee on Missing Persons on a date to be agreed in the near future,” UN special representative Lisa Buttenheim said.

The UN official said the two leaders engaged in a discussion on the substance of the negotiations and on methodology, and exchanged views and proposals on confidence building measures and technical committees.

The CMP is tasked with determining the fates of 2,001 people – 1,508 Greek Cypriots and 493 Turkish Cypriots – missing since the inter-communal strife in the 1960s and the Turkish invasion in 1974.

Excavations and exhumations on both sides of the island started in 2006.

So far, the remains of 396 Greek Cypriots and 125 Turkish Cypriots have been identified and returned to their families.

The CMP employs a bi-communal forensic team of more than 60 Cypriot archaeologists, anthropologists and geneticists, who conduct excavations throughout the island and anthropological and genetic analyses of remains at the CMP Anthropological Laboratory.
http://cyprus-mail.com/2014/07/05/leade ... vergences/

[repulsewarrior]

Following the report on Monday’s two Cypriot community presidents’ meeting where President Eroglu had submitted a five-point road map, according to Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) there appears to be little in the way of agreement on the Cyprus Problem, ‘Cyprus Mail’ reports.

They have apparently already failed to agree on confidence building measures (CBM). Both sides arrived at the meeting with a number of proposals on CBMs but were unable to agree on any of them and left the final decision for their next meeting on 24th July.

CBMs proposed by the Turkish Cypriot side were rejected because they were aimed at enhancing the status of the “break-away state”, according to CyBC, while the Turkish Cypriot side refused to return Varosha, which is a priority for Greek Cypriots.

In statements he made to the press upon returning, President Dervis Eroglu added that his side wanted to open a new crossing point at Lefke, in the north-east of the island.

Further Eroglu submitted a five-point roadmap in the negotiations, explaining that it would bring results and that the Turkish Cypriot side wanted to conclude the negotiations successfully, which will be put to a referendum so that a new state would be created the next day.

The road map was rejected by the Greek Cypriot side. CyBC cited an unnamed diplomatic source claiming that President Nicos Anastasiades told Eroglu that the Cyprus problem can be solved with honest intent to reach a result and not timetables. CyBC further reported that Eroglu told Anastasiades that a non-solution suits him, only to have the president respond that he hadn’t built his political career on the Cyprus problem.

Both leaders also failed to reach an agreement on a proposal put forward by Anastasiades, asking for a document to be drafted outlining the issues where both sides agree, where they disagree and where they are close to an agreement.

CyBC reported that Eroglu said that the issues agreed upon have already been written down, to which Anastasiades responded by presenting a 19-point document detailing how Eroglu’s position has shifted in some key elements, including citizenship, immigration, the public sector and the state’s foreign relations.

The two negotiators, Andreas Mavroyiannis and Kudret Ozersay were tasked with discussing the proposals put forth by both sides, along with the CBMs lists.

Τhe leaders did agree, however, to jointly visit the anthropological laboratory of the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) on 24th July, before their meeting on the same day, according to the United Nations.

This was announced by UNSG Special representative Lisa Buttenheim, after Monday’s meeting in the UN protected zone near the old Nicosia airport.

The visit had been agreed last Friday without setting a date.

Noting the leaders met “in a positive and friendly atmosphere”, Buttenheim said that “the leaders instructed their negotiators to conduct an additional special meeting on the issue of confidence building measures, and also on the methodology and the way forward, based on the proposals submitted by both sides, with a view to preparing suggestions for the next leaders meeting.”

The CMP is a bi-communal body established in 1981 by the leaders of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities with the participation of the United Nations.

Following the establishment of an agreed list of missing persons, the CMP’s objective is to recover, identify, and return to their families, the remains of 2001 persons — 502 Turkish Cypriots and 1,493 Greek Cypriots — who went missing during inter-communal strife in the 1960s and the 1974 Turkish invasion.

The CMP consists of a bi-communal forensic team of more than 60 Cypriot archaeologists, anthropologists and geneticists, who conduct excavations throughout the island and anthropological and genetic analyses of remains at the CMP anthropological laboratory.
http://www.lgcnews.com/leaders-still-fa ... -road-map/

...news in the north.