Greek PM says ‘progress made’ in Cyprus talks after meeting Greek Cypriot head

ATHENS

AP photo

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has said the Cyprus talks, which are due to resume in Geneva on Nov. 20, have made considerable progress but there is still distance to cover before a final deal.

“We can see that progress has been made [in the Cyprus talks] but like in any important and critical negotiations, one cannot count that a deal has been reached in any of the topics until a consensus is reach in all of the topics,” Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Tsipras as saying after meeting with Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades.

Anastasiades was in Athens on Nov. 17 to inform the Greek government of the latest developments in the peace negotiations. 

Peace talks on the divided eastern Mediterranean island were relaunched in May 2015, after the election of Turkish Cypriot President Mustafa Akıncı as the head of the Turkish Cypriot community. They reached a new intensity from Nov. 7 to Nov. 11, during which the two sides met for a series of meetings in Mont Pelerin in Switzerland under the auspices of the United Nations. 

A brief U.N. statement at the end of the week-long negotiations on Nov. 11 said “significant progress had been achieved,” without going into details.

Upon Anastasiades’ request, meetings were set to be continued on Nov. 20 in Geneva. 

Tsipras stressed that Greece was supporting efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Cyprus conflict and was actively involved in the security issue of the talks. 

The island was divided between a Greek south and a Turkish north when the Turkish military intervened in 1974 under the terms of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee, in response to an Athens-backed coup aiming to unite the island with Greece.

Akıncı said on Nov. 15, the 33rd anniversary of the Turkish Cypriot state’s establishment, that it was “time for a resolution” on the island.