AKEL on UN Secretary-General’s invitation to the two leaders for hosting a trilateral meeting
Statement by AKEL Parliamentary Spokesperson Y. Loucaides
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 26th October 2019, Nicosia
AKEL welcomes the invitation extended by the UN Secretary-General to the two leaders for hosting a trilateral meeting as a positive development. Taking into account the prolonged stalemate on the Cyprus problem, but also the UN Secretary General’s recommendation to the two leaders that it is their own responsibility to find a way to move the procedure forward, we express the wish that the two leaders will at long last be able to reach a conclusion on the terms of reference.
We reiterate that if the two leaders had the required will and were sincere in the positions they express in public about their respect of the convergences, the Guterres Framework and the February 2014 agreement, the terms of reference would have easily been agreed upon long ago.
Consequently, an agreement on the procedure will on the one hand take us one step further, but it will leave the issue of the agreement on the substance of the Cypriot problem as the main issue at stake, a goal that demands increased political will. Given the roadmap that the two leaders seem to have agreed upon, referring to the prospect of meaningful negotiation after the vote in the occupied territories, it becomes easy to understand how the difficulties will become greater if a politician that favours partition assumes the leadership of the Turkish Cypriot community.
