UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for Cyprus Espen Barth held another with President Mustafa Akinci on Wednesday.
During the meeting, Eide and Akinci re-assessed some issues in the negotiations which need to be solved within the next weeks.
Turkish Cypriot negotiator Ozdil Nami, presidential spokesman Baris Burcu, the undersecretary of the foreign ministry, Erhan Ercin and UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative and Head of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) Lisa Buttenheim were also present at the meeting.
In a short statement after the meeting, Eide said that they are working hard, that the clock is ticking, and that it is beneficial to have frequent meetings with the aim of speeding up the negotiations.
Stating that they are discussing some concrete issues which they would like solve in the forthcoming weeks, Eide stated that it is useful to hold frequent separate meeting with both leaders and their negotiating teams.
He also stated that they are certainly headed in the right direction and added that the message he would like to convey to both leaders is that they could speed up the process and make good use of the time.
Eide added that during the meeting with Akinci they discussed some practical ways on how some of those fundamental issues could be solved.
Finally, the UN envoy referred to the chief negotiators’ meeting which took place the other day and described it as encouraging. He explained that they are hoping for similar results in the weeks to come.
Vatan
