President Mustafa Akinci has closed the door to the participation of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (Permanent Five) in the Cyprus Summit to be held in Geneva in January.
Speaking after his meeting with President Nicos Anastasiades in the buffer zone as part of the Cyprus negotiations, Akinci stated that there is no need for any group other than the EU to be present in Geneva. He argued that the agreements regarding this conference and the participants are very clear and it does not need to be further broadened.
“The UN is already engaged and the UN Security Council supports the procedure”, he said, arguing that the only exception could be the EU, which could be present at the conference in the same way as it had been at Burgenstock in 2004. He said that there will be absolutely no problem if everyone remains committed to a form of conference like the one in Burgenstock and added:
“You know, within the framework of the agreement we reached on 1 December, there will be a meeting on 9 January in Geneva. The two sides will be meeting until 11 January. After that the five-party conference will start as of 12 January”.
Akinci noted that another element of the agreement is that the negotiators will be holding intensive meetings by 9 January in an effort to close the pending issues by achieving new convergences and that the process between 9 and 12 January will be held without any preconditions.
The President said that the negotiators discussed issues such as the federal laws, jurisdiction, the powers of the federal government, the relations between the federal government and the constituent states, foreign relations, the police and the work of the EU ad hoc committee. He said that they decided to hold a few meetings with President Anastasiades by 9 January and they will probably meet on 20 or 22 December and once or twice in January before going to Geneva.
Wishing for the differences to be minimised, Akinci said that everybody knows that some issues will remain pending by 9 January and some of them may remain open after 12 January as well, but the framework of the guidelines of a solution will come up.
He added: “However, what we are looking for is a comprehensive solution. We will try to achieve this by filling the content of this framework. If everything goes well and the negotiations which we will conduct between 9 and 11 January and our work after 12 January with the participation of the guarantor powers give fruits, many issues regarding the federal laws, the constitution and the implementation [of the solution] will be concluded within á few months in 2017. A few months after this, there will be a preparation period for our people and the other community within the framework of a preparatory period for a possible referendum. […]”.
Havadis