The Turkish Cypriot president said Friday he expected a trilateral Cyprus meeting scheduled to take place in Geneva would yield a result in the first quarter of 2011.
President Derviş Eroğlu said he expected the parties to work toward a result regarding the Cyprus issue during the trilateral Cyprus meeting set to take place on Jan. 26. The trilateral meeting will be held between United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Eroğlu and Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris Christofias.
"The Cyprus issue has been under discussion for 30 to 40 years. We should put a time limit on negotiations and we do not want negotiations to extend into the coming years," Eroğlu told reporters after meeting Christofias at the buffer zone in Nicosia that separates northern and southern Cyprus.
Eroğlu and Christofias debated the island’s administration and the sharing of power, and a number of issues regarding the European Union. Eroğlu said Ban would meet the leaders again in March and hoped the meeting would be the "last" one. "Negotiations cannot continue till eternity, and we expect Ban to assume an attitude in another trilateral Cyprus meeting to take place in the second half of March," Eroğlu said.
Eroğlu said the Geneva meeting would parallel the trilateral Cyprus meeting that took place in New York on Nov. 18, 2010, adding that expected the secretary-general to have more of an impact on the discussions.
Cyprus was split into a Turkish Cypriot north and a Greek Cypriot south in 1974 when Turkey intervened after a coup aiming to unify the island nation with Greece.
(AA)
Posts
