Cypriot President expects positive outcome from reunification negociations

Negotiations for a Cyprus solution will focus on all pending issues so as to ascertain in the months ahead how to reach a settlement, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said on Tuesday.

In remarks to reporters after a three-and-a-half-hour negotiating session with Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, Anastasiades said they examined the future course of the negotiations with a view to focus on all pending issues.

"The aim is to ascertain where we could have convergences and where there are differences, so that gradually... within the next months, we will be able to see how it is possible to achieve the desired solution," said Anastasiades.

The two community leaders have been engaged in negotiations for almost eight months to try and find a solution to reunify the eastern Mediterranean island.

Cyprus was split along ethnic lines when Turkish troops occupied the northern one third of the island in 1974.

Expectations for a solution after about 40 years of failed United Nations-brokered negotiations received a boost when Akinci was elected leader of the Turkish Cypriot community last year.

But recent statements by both sides acknowledged that Anastasiades and Akinci have once again come up against deep-rooted notions that prevented a solution in the past.

However, Anastasiades said the important difference this time "is a mutual understanding of the difficulties each community faces."

"In this framework, we are trying to find ways so that, without ignoring the concerns of one side, we do not disregard the concerns of the other side," Anastasiades added.

He said a positive outcome was possible provided that, in cases in which the positions of either side do not meet the basic principles for a viable and functional settlement, problems are overcome through proposals corresponding to reality and not to notions coming from the past. Endit