Christofias: ‘progress is our goal’

Cyprus reunification has been back on the agenda in the past week…

Cyprus President Demetris Christofias met Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat at the end of May to discuss upcoming reunification talks.  At their meeting, the two community leaders reaffirmed their commitment to a bi-zonal bi-communal federation and decided to meet again in the second half of June to make a new assessment of the situation.

President Christofias said he was ‘satisfied with the meeting’, and indicated that the National Council - the top advisory body to the President on the handling of the Cyprus conflict - will meet soon.

Preparing the groundwork

Responding to questions about accelerating the peace process, Christofias pointed out that the two sides in will jointly evaluate the situation when they meet in June: “We have another month until then, I hope there is progress, this is our goal to have a clear basis at the end of the day to be able and decide on a date to start face to face negotiations”.

The six working groups and the seven technical committees have been meeting for the past 4-5 weeks discussing issues such as governance, property, territory, health and EU matters, the economy and other aspects of the Cyprus question to prepare the ground for direct negotiations between the two leaders.