Cyprus Update: Five party conference possible before the end of 2016: Akinci

Cyprus: Turkish Cypriot leader, President Mustafa Akinci on Thursday delivered a detailed statement concerning the Cyprus negotiations after meeting with Greek Cypriot President Anastasiades, underlining that finding a solution in 2016 is absolutely neccessary.

Akinci said; 

“The issues of security and guarantees should be discussed at a five party conference”,

“the period beginning in September until December is the period during which we should discuss these issues and that the five party conference should not be left until 2017''.

In reference to the latest meeting between both leaders, Akinci said that detailed work had taken place and have gradually began discussing technical issues with eight issues discussed in total, four of which were under the economy chapter and the rest under the EU chapter

On the economy chapter, Akinci said the issues were discussed in such detail that even the VAT percentages were brought up with the final target being that after the necessary transitional periods, there will be similar VAT rates for the entire federation.

Akinci noted that the resources to be given by the federal budget to the founding states and the percentage of the contribution to the Turkish Cypriot founding state, which will be financially weaker were also discussed.

Akinci said that convergences were reached but some differences still exist.

“The technical committees will continue discussing the points on which disagreement still exists, but I believe that these issues will not continue to be matters which block the way”, he said.

Akinci also asserted the confidence that they should put in more effort to overcome problematic issues in the forthcoming talks.

“We believe that when we take up the issue of territory and guarantees, we should reach the point of resolving this issue by meeting continuously”, Akinci said and argued: “If we do not succeed, we should be able to sincerely say to our people that we solved these points, but we could somehow not overcome the differences between us on this important point”.

Akinci said the federal executive, judiciary and legislative powers will be discussed during the next leaders’ meeting on July 22^nd,  and the issue of internal security will be discussed on July 26^th .  On July 29^th, discussion on territory will be “in the form of brain storming” without discussing place names, percentages and maps.
On what will be following the July 29^th meeting, Akinci said that if they work effectively and successfully during the remaining time frame, a solution could be reached by the end of the year.

“Our target to turn 2016 into the year of the solution still continues. In our view, this is an attainable target, but it depends on how effective the forthcoming process will be and how much the sides will come close to each other. On 29^th July we will discuss the following programme but August is a month for vacations especially in Europe and south Cyprus. Therefore, there will definitely be a two week break in August, but I hope that as of the second half of August and in the following months we will be able to construct a very serious working programme again”.

When asked to speak on the UN Secretary-General’s recent report regarding the UNFICYP, Akinci said that what was lacking in the report was that it did not state who was responsible for the non-materialisation of the confidence building measures (CBM), why these measures have not been materialised and what is source of the problem and also expressing the vie that if the report remains as it were, it will be unjust for the Turkish Cypriot side.
Source: LGC News