By Stefanos Evripidou
CYPRUS CANNOT afford another failure in efforts to solve the decades-old division of the island, said President Nicos Anastasiades yesterday.
Speaking at the Presidential Palace during a ceremony to receive the credentials of a number of new ambassadors to the island, Anastasiades said a Cyprus solution remains the government’s first priority.
“We are ready to examine inventive ways to carry the process forward to ultimately achieve the re-unification of our country. The recent appointment by the government of Cyprus of a negotiator of the Greek Cypriot community illustrates our approach towards carefully preparing the ground for result-orientated negotiations and highlights our efforts to reach at last a settlement, the reunification of our country and a common European future for all our citizens,” he said.
“We cannot afford another failure,” he said, adding that the substantive involvement of the EU in the new round of peace talks was desirable.
The negotiations must be “properly and thoroughly prepared” if they are to bear fruit, he said.
A solution must come through the UN process and be based on the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and on the values and principles of the EU.
The settlement must serve, above all, the legitimate interests of the Cypriot people as a whole and not that of any third country, he added.
UN Special Adviser Alexander Downer was due to arrive on the island yesterday to hold a series of meetings with the leaders of the two communities and their respective appointed negotiators.
Downer was scheduled to hold separate meetings with Greek Cypriot negotiator Andreas Mavroyiannis and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart Osman Ertug yesterday.
Sources told the Cyprus Mail that Downer will host a dinner for both negotiators today while tomorrow the Australian will meet separately with Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu.
The UN special adviser will be keen to sound out the two sides on how they want to go about starting a new round of peace talks- both in terms of procedure and substance- after Eroglu cut short the previous round last year with former president Demetris Christofias in protest at Cyprus taking over the helm of the EU presidency.
A key issue will be how the two sides interpret the document of convergences and divergences recorded between 2008 and 2012 that Downer gave to both sides.
The talks are expected to start around mid-October.
Meanwhile, the new coalition ‘government’ in the north between the Republican Turkish Party (CTP) and the Democratic Party (DP) announced their positions on the Cyprus problem last Friday in a manifesto.
According to the manifesto, the new coalition will follow a proactive policy aimed at making the voice of Turkish Cypriots heard in the world and “their just demands and expectations correctly understood by the international community”.
The new partnership will work in close consultation with Turkey on peace talks and follow “an active policy in the direction of reaching a federal agreement which includes the equal sovereignty of the Turkish Cypriot people, their political equality and the continuation of the guarantees”.
In the event that peace talks fail, the new ‘government’ will mobilise all possibilities for the Turkish Cypriots to be united with the world, said the manifesto.
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