Cypriot leaders take on-going UN-backed peace process forward

The Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders continued United Nations-sponsored talks on the reunification of the Mediterranean island today, pledging to meet again before the year’s end to examine issues concerning state and federal law.

In May, Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat committed to a partnership that will comprise a Federal Government with a single international identity, along with a Turkish Cypriot Constituent State and a Greek Cypriot Constituent State, which will be of equal status.

Speaking to the press after today’s meeting at the UN Protected Area in Nicosia, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Cyprus, Alexander Downer, reported that the two leaders focused their discussions on external relations and the powers of a federal government.

The leaders are slated to return to the negotiations on 22 December, when they will discuss the relationship between laws passed by the federal government and legislation created by the country’s constituent states.

The full-fledged power-sharing negotiations, central to the reunification process in Cyprus – where UN peacekeepers have been deployed since March 1964 to prevent further fighting between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities – began in September.