Off the wire
• Zika babies may develop microcephaly months after birth: study  • Hungarian parliament approves constitutional court justices, ends years-long shortfall  • Lithuanian parliament approves Skvernelis as new PM  • EU sanctions against Russia should be scrapped: Slovak PM  • Belgium withdraws residence permit of Salah Abdeslam  • UN continuing diplomatic efforts ongoing to solve "ghastly" Syrian crisis  • Poland to receive 1.9 billion USD from EU for transport projects  • Disappointment, concern, despair following breakdown of Cyprus peace negotiations  • Iran sends extra heavy water out to comply to nuclear deal: AEOI  • Slovenian officers to assist Macedonian border police: official  
You are here: 　 Home

1st LD Writethru: Disappointment, concern, despair following breakdown of Cyprus peace negotiations

Xinhua, November 23, 2016 Adjust font size:

Officials and laymen in Cyprus expressed deep disappointment and concern on Tuesday following the breakdown of the latest round of Cypriot peace negotiations against all expectations.

The United Nations (UN), which brokers the reunification negotiations, announced in the early hours of Tuesday that the leaders of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities had failed to achieve the necessary convergences on criteria for territorial adjustments that would have paved the way for the last phase of the talks.

Cypriot government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said the Greek Cypriot side was very disappointed and not happy at all that "a very promising process" had failed to reach a compromise.

He also expressed concern at the fact that the Turkish Cypriot side was quick to lay the blame on the Greek Cypriots for the impasse only moments after the talks ended in Mont Pelerin, Switzerland.

"We do not want to play the blame game. But the reference by the Turkish Cypriot side to maximalist positions by the Greek Cypriot side do not respond to reality," he said.

He added that the UN, which followed the 18-month long process, knew very well the reasons for this outcome of the talks.

Greek Cypriot sources with inside knowledge of the negotiations were quoted by state radio as saying the talks collapsed because the Turkish side refused to even enter into discussion about the return of Morphou, a town to which about 7,500 displaced people would return after reunification.

Turkish Cypriots control about 37 percent of the eastern Mediterranean island's territory, which was occupied by Turkish troops in 1974 in response to a coup by the military rulers of Greece at the time.

The sources said Akinci insisted that Turkish Cypriots should keep 29.2 percent of the territory, and he did not move from his original position that only about 55,000 Greek Cypriots out of 170,000 displaced people would return to their properties from which they were evicted by Turkish troops. Endit