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Leaders hold further talks as UN-led negotiations on Cyprus resume

Leaders hold further talks as UN-led negotiations on Cyprus resume

Tayé-Brook Zerihoun, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and UNFICYP Chief of Mission
The Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders resumed their United Nations-led negotiations aimed at reunifying the Mediterranean island as they held their first meeting for 2009 today in Nicosia.

Last 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.

“They have reached full agreement on the issue of harmonization and cooperation between the Federal Government and the Constituent States, or the federal units,” Tayé-Brook Zerihoun, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Cyprus, told reporters after the three-hour meeting, which took place at the UN Protected Area.

“They are also very close to full convergence on the issue of hierarchy of norms and have decided to continue discussion on the matter in order to overcome the remaining obstacles,” he added.

The two leaders will meet again on 12 January, when they will be joined by the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Cyprus, Alexander Downer. They have agreed to take up the issue of past agreements at that meeting.

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 last September.