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UN launches new initiative to tackle Cyprus problem

Xinhua | Updated: 2018-07-24 03:16
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Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades talks with UN envoy Jane Hall Lute during a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Nicosia, Cyprus July 23, 2018. [Photo / VCG]

NICOSIA - After a hiatus of one year, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres launched a new initiative on the Cyprus problem on Monday, by sending a personal envoy to assess the prospects of resuming peace negotiations.

Jane Holl Lute, a high standing UN official, met separately in Nicosia with Cyprus's President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, querying them in detail about their attitude towards new reunification negotiations.

The latest talks for a settlement of the Cyprus issue, one of the longest standing international problems, ended in July 2017, amid acrimony between the main players -- Turkey and Turkish Cypriots on one side and Greece and Greek Cypriots on the other side.

Upcoming elections for a new Cypriot President and premature presidential elections in Turkey rendered an earlier resumption of the negotiations politically untimely.

Lute's meeting with Anastasiades on Monday morning lasted three hours, an indication of the details they went into during their meeting. Her meeting with Akinci in the afternoon was equally lengthy.

Akinci reportedly repeated his oft-stated view that any new negotiations should be short and be concluded within a fixed timeframe.

Departing from the practice of previous envoys who had a support team with them, Lute chose to be alone during the tete-a-tete with the two Cypriot leaders, taking down herself what they said.

Sources said that she told her interlocutors that she was in Nicosia to listen to what the two sides had to say about resuming negotiations and to report back to the Secretary General on their thoughts and positions.

Cypriot government sources said Anastasiades expressed his readiness to resume negotiations on a six-point framework submitted to the parties by Guterres at an international conference on Cyprus a year ago.

This dealt with the most intractable problems of the Cyprus problem, security which will not involve the current "guarantor powers" -- Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom -- and withdrawal of Turkish occupation troops.

It also provided about power sharing between the two communities, territorial readjustments, the restitution of properties to thousands of people who were forced out of their houses in 1974, and arrangements to prevent the flooding of Cyprus by mainland Turks.

Lute will return to New York on Tuesday to brief Guterres on her conversations with the Cypriot leaders before embarking on a second mission which will take her to Ankara, Athens and London and also to Brussels for talks with European Union leaders, as Cyprus is and will continue to be an EU member.

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