The unilateral measures of the Republic of Cyprus concerning a wide range of subjects that concern the daily life of Turkish Cypriots, will be announced soon, Government Spokesperson, Konstantinos Letymbiotis, said on Friday, in his statements at an event organised by the Journalists’ Union in Nicosia.
He also said that the Government was entering into a new period beginning with the arrival of the new personal envoy of the UN Secretary-General, ‘with a sincere political will to continue to contribute, to take initiatives’ in order to create the conditions for the resumption of the talks from where they left off, on the agreed basis of a bicommunal bizonal federation with political equality.
Asked to comment on Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar’s new call for cooperation on energy issues and the rights of the Turkish Cypriots, the Spokesperson said that the standing position of the Republic of Cyprus is that these are matters of national sovereignty and that the Cypriot EEZ and natural wealth, belong to t
he Republic of Cyprus, according to international law.
The message to Tatar, ‘and our Turkish Cypriot compatriots’, he said, was that, the solution of the Cyprus problem would benefit the whole of Cyprus, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. ‘The solution on the basis of the BBF with political equality is what we believe that our Turkish compatriots also seek and believe in’, he said.
Letymbiotis noted that the personal envoy of UN Secretary-General, Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar, will be in Cyprus on January 30 ‘and we should’, he said, ‘prove our political will so that 2024 can be the year of salvation for our country’.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third. Repeated rounds of UN-led peace talks have so far failed to yield results. The latest round of negotiations, in July 2017 at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana ended inconclusively. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres appointed María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar of Columbia as his personal envoy for Cyprus,
to assume a Good Offices role on his behalf and search for common ground on the way forward in the Cyprus issue.
Source: Cyprus News Agency