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Roundup: Cypriot community leaders discuss territorial adjustments

Xinhua, November 11, 2016 Adjust font size:

The leaders of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, negotiating in Switzerland in search of a Cyprus solution, have started detailed discussion on documents containing their respective positions on territorial adjustments, Cypriot government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said on Thursday.

This is the first time in the four-decade history of the Cyprus negotiations that the issue comes up for discussion.

Turkish troops occupied 37.5 percent of Cyprus territory in 1974, reacting to a coup engineered by the military rulers of Greece at the time.

The negotiations aim at bringing down the territory under Turkish Cypriot control closer to their population ratio of 22 percent.

Christodoulides told reporters ahead of Thursday's negotiations that Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci would be discussing the criteria for territorial adjustments as recorded on a joint document in which the positions of the two sides are shown side by side.

"The aim is to prepare, if possible, a final document containing jointly agreed criteria for territorial adjustments, which will then be applied on map," Christodoulides said.

He conceded that there is no common ground at the moment on the territory issue, though some progress has been made overnight at negotiations at a lower level.

Cypriot state television station reported that the two leaders made what it called a "partial agreement" on the territory, but not enough for a final one.

Asked whether there was enough time to conclude an agreement by Friday, when the talks are scheduled to come to an end, Christodoulides said that this could be possible given there is good will by both sides.

But he added that the negotiations in Switzerland are not the end of the road and will be continued in Cyprus until an agreement is reached.

After that, the two leaders will enter the last stage of negotiations which will deal with security arrangements at a multi-party international conference.

Ahead of leaving for Switzerland, both Anastasiades and Akinci said they were determined to work hard to solve remaining differences so as to make a solution agreement possible within 2016. Endit