Cyprus Update: President Anastasiades hopeful about a positive conclusion on economic aspects of the negotiations

Cyprus: On Tuesday, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades speaking after his meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafs Akincisaid in Nicosia said Nicosia had made representations on the matter and called for patience until the final report is out expressing his satisfaction with Tuesday’s talks in which the major subjects talked about were the economy and the EU.

“There is a wider understanding that there must be absolute convergence and to this end the Technical Committees have been ordered to address these issues to move forward in the debate. There is broad mutual understanding, but we should reach concrete results now, in order to find convergences. I would not say that I am not optimistic this can be reached.”

Anatasiades and Akinci along with negotiators Andreas Mavroyiannis and Ozdil Nami and the heads of the working group on the economy discussed convergences reached so far on the economy.

Anastasiades said preparatory findings by reports carried out by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on the economic aspects of a Cyprus settlement would be discussed at a later stage with the final reports expected to be submitted by early October.

In other related events, the Cyprus government has reportedly received an assurances that the references to the recent Solea fires will be removed from the final draft of the upcoming report on UNFICYP.

Cyprus’ permanent representative at the United Nations in New York, Nicos Emiliou who received the assurances during a meeting on Monday with Jeffrey Feltman, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, and Edmond Mulet, the Chief of Staff to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, pointed out that references to such events are not part of UNFICYP’s remit.

The UN officials, then promised to remove the contentious references from the final draft, in order to “preserve the good climate in the peace talks.”

The UN Security Council’s agenda has agreed that, countries who participate in UNFICYP will be briefed on July 20, likely by Elizabeth Spehar.
The Council will then hold an open meeting on July 26 where it is expected to adopt a resolution for UNFICYP.
Source: Cyprus Mail