Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders meet ahead of talks with UN chief

The leaders of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities today discussed questions about the executive and citizenship as they held their last meeting before their encounter with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York at the end of this month.

“There has been progress on several of the core issues and that’s encouraging,” said the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Cyprus, Alexander Downer.

“But there are still difficulties to be resolved on the core issues,” he told reporters in Nicosia after the meeting between Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris Christofias and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart, Dervis Eroglu.

Following his meeting with the two leaders in early July, Mr. Ban announced that they had accepted his offer for an enhanced UN mediation role in the talks aimed at reunifying the Mediterranean island.

He added that he expected both sides to reach convergence by October on core issues, which include governance and power-sharing, economy, European Union matters, property, territory and security.

Mr. Downer noted that at the meeting that will be held with the leaders on 30 and 31 October, the Secretary-General will be able to examine the differences that still exist on some of the issues and explore how resolve them.

The upcoming meeting will be the fourth between the Secretary-General and the two leaders, following previous meetings in New York in November 2010 and in Geneva in January and July this year.

The UN-backed talks began in 2008 with the aim of setting up a federal government with a single international personality in a bi-zonal, bi-communal country, with Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot constituent states of equal status.