Roundup: UN official calls for effort to prevent future Cyprus negotiations glitches

The Cyprus peace negotiations have not been derailed but it will take a big effort to prevent a future accident after a crisis that led to the disruption of a negotiating session on Thursday, a United Nations official has said.

United Nations Secretary General's special adviser on Cyprus Espen Barth Eide said after separate emergency meetings with the leaders of the Cypriot communities on Thursday night that a meeting scheduled for Feb. 23 has not been canceled.

"Both leaders told me that the process has not stopped and they remain committed to the process despite the problems that flared up," he said.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci had earlier blamed each other for prematurely pulling out of a meeting presided over by Eide.

But the UN official said that this was not surprising because the discussion was being held in a difficult environment and the atmosphere was very charged.

Eide met with the Turkish Cypriot leader for over an hour and his meeting with Anastasiades lasted for about 90 minutes.

After the meeting with Anastasiades, Eide said that the negotiations are still on.

He added that he had spoken with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, briefing him about the crisis.

"He encouraged me not to let up efforts for the peace process to continue," Eide said.

The crisis developed after Akinci used Thursday's meeting to complain about an amendment in a law introducing education reforms that requires school teachers to make a short mention of the anniversary of a referendum in 1950, in which Greek Cypriots almost unanimously voted in favor of Cyprus uniting with Greece.

The amendment was introduced last Friday by an extreme right-wing party, which has only two seats in parliament and strongly opposed to the peace negotiations.

The largest parties against the amendment abstained in the vote, giving small parties the chance to pass it by a marginal majority.

Turkey occupied 37 percent of Cypriot territory in a 1974 operation sparked by a coup engineered by the military rulers of Greece at that time.

Eide noted that the negotiations are not held in a sterilized environment and warned that as things progress towards the conclusion of an agreement, efforts to prevent it will intensify.

"We should be very careful because there are elements in both communities who want the process to get out of orbit," said Eide.

He added that he will try to contain the damage caused by Thursday's crisis. Enditem