President Dervis Eroglu has repeated that the Cyprus negotiations process cannot continue open-ended and without deadlines, Bayrak TV reports.
During an interview to the Turkish state news channel TRT-Turk, Eroglu said that Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades had rejected a proposal to hold a tripartite meeting in New York with the participation of the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Touching upon his meeting with the OIC Secretary General Iyad Madani, Eroglu said that Mr Madani was considering holding the next OIC Foreign Ministers’ meeting in the TRNC.
Also responding to a question regarding the new UN Special Adviser Espen Barth Eide, Eroglu said that some progress had been achieved at their last working dinner which had culminated with a joint statement at the end of the leaders’ meeting the next day.
“The second phase of the talks we have been conducting had been completed, but we were unable to move to the next phase. We were able to overcome this obstacle at the meeting attended by the UN Special Advisor and decided to launch structured negotiations”, he said.
Eroglu added that: “Despite the fact that we have a natural timetable ahead, the Greek Cypriot side has a habit of resuming open-ended talks. I proposed a roadmap for the talks but unfortunately Mr Anastasiades rejected this proposal. Nevertheless we reached an agreement to indulge in result-oriented negotiations as soon as possible which could be somewhere from one year to five years for the Greek Cypriots”.
