Turkish Cypriot president remains positive about talks, calls for extra effort

NICOSIA

Turkish Cypriot President Mustafa Akıncı expressed hope over the ongoing Cyprus peace talks on Jan. 26, also making a call to all parties in the process to put extra effort into solving the conflict. 

“We are at a very critical phase of the Cyprus negotiations and we are at a point where we can really reach a result,” said Akıncı on Jan. 26 after a four-hour meeting with his Greek Cypriot counterpart, Nicos Anastasiades, in Nicosia under the auspices of the United Nations. 

“At this point we should not waste so much effort. Therefore it is beneficial that this process is not prolonged and the conference is conducted within an early time frame,” he added. 

The conference Akıncı was referring to is the follow-up meeting of the Jan. 12 five-party conference held in Geneva with the participation of the three guarantor powers, Turkey, Greece and the United Kingdom, along with the Turkish and Greek Cypriot administrations. 

Referring to the Cyprus talks in Switzerland earlier this month, Akıncı said the conference on Cyprus would not be a process of “open-ended negotiations which will continue forever.” 

He called on the parties of the negotiations process, the three guarantor powers, the United Nations and the European Union, which attended the Geneva talks as an observer, to put in effort to find the best solution in the forthcoming period. 

“Everyone should assume responsibility. Everyone will benefit from the result that will come out at the end of the day,” Akıncı said. 

He said the peace process was at a new level, adding that with the five-party conference something new had been achieved that had never been done before over the 50-year negotiations process. 

After the five-party summit, expert-level working group meetings were held in Switzerland’s Mont Pelerin on Jan. 18 and 19. 

Akıncı and Anastasiades assessed the results of what was discussed at these talks in Mont Pelerin during their meeting in Nicosia on Jan. 26. 

“We [Akıncı and Anastasiades, under the auspices of the U.N.] elaborated on the developments there [Mont Pelerin]. We will come together again on Feb. 1 and form the road map of the process ahead of us, as part of the consensus reached at the Geneva Conference,” said Akıncı. 

He added that the first consensus of the five-party conference had been achieved in Mont Pelerin by preparing lists of remaining problems regarding the security and safety chapter at a technical level, and possible mechanisms that can be founded to solve these problems. 

Akıncı pledged that from Feb. 1 onwards they will continue to fulfil the other consensus of providing a joint roadmap