ΓΡΑΦΕΙΟ ΤΥΠΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΠΛΗΡΟΦΟΡΙΩΝ
24/01/2017 9:22
Ο Ειδικός Σύμβουλος του ΓΓ του ΟΗΕ για την Κύπρο και η Ειδική Αντιπρόσωπος του για την UNFICYP ενημέρωσαν το Συμβούλιο Ασφαλείας
Το Συμβούλιο Ασφαλείας των Ηνωμένων Εθνών υπό την προεδρία του Μονίμου Αντιπροσώπου της Σουηδίας Πρέσβη Olof Skoog, είχε χθες το απόγευμα, 23 Ιανουαρίου 2017, κλειστές διαβουλεύσεις, στη διάρκεια των οποίων ενημερώθηκαν από τον Ειδικό Σύμβουλο του Γενικού Γραμματέα του ΟΗΕ για την Κύπρο κ. Espen Barth Eide και την Ειδική Αντιπρόσωπο του κα Elizabeth Spehar για την Ειρηνευτική Δύναμη των Ηνωμένων Εθνών στην Κύπρο, UNFICYP, της οποίας η θητεία λήγει στις 31 Ιανουαρίου. Το Συμβούλιο Ασφαλείας αναμένεται να υιοθετήσει το ψήφισμα για ανανέωση της θητείας της για άλλους έξι μήνες στις 26 Ιανουαρίου.
Αμέσως μετά την ενημέρωση ο Πρόεδρος του Συμβουλίου Ασφαλείας Πρέσβης Olof Skoog έκανε την πιο κάτω δήλωση με στοιχεία προς τον τύπο (elements to the press) ενώ ακολούθησαν δηλώσεις απο τον κ. Eide και την κα Spehar.
Πρόεδρος Συμβουλίου Ασφαλείας: We just had a very good discussion on Cyprus in the Council and I want to give you three elements that we have agreed on among the Council members.
First of all, we have welcomed the progress made in the negotiations on a Cyprus settlement in recent months, as well as the convening of a Conference for Cyprus in Geneva this month which addressed security and guarantees for the first time.
Secondly, the Security Council members have commended the step fast and courageous leadership shown by both the Cypriot leaders and the UN for the crucial support it continuous to provide and reiterated the very strong support to the Special Adviser, Mr Espen Barth Eide and the Special Representative, Ms Elizabeth Spehar, in their active role in facilitating discussions.
And finally, the members of the Council have reiterated their strong commitment to support the two sides in reaching a settlement deal including through the role over of the UNFICYP mandate and we urge all parties to maintain momentum and sees the opportunity they now have to secure a historic agreement for a unified Cyprus. With that very strong commitment on behalf of the Security Council and support for two UN colleagues here, I would like to give the floor first to the Special Adviser, Mr Espen Barth Eide.
Eide: Thank you Mr President of the Council. Again I would like to say that it is such a strong, so important for Elizabeth and myself and for all the people out there in the field trying to be supportive of the leader led processing on Cyprus that we have this unanimous Council behind us, and we have heard that again and I would reply back that this is something that will bring with us back to Cyprus and it is important for our work but more importantly, it is a very strong encouragement to the leaders, to Mr Anastasiades and Mr Akinci who have really shown truly leadership all through these 20 months but particularly so over the last months by both agreed to present maps to each other on very similar percentages but also to agree to start international Conference on Cyprus. And the fact the international Conference on Cyprus has started, marks step change, pivotal change in this process because until now it was negotiations between the two sides. Those of course continue because they are still issues they have to be solved but the Conference is also now set on an international level which means that finally all issues are on the table, and all issues are on the table because we are in the final phase. Exactly how long this final phase will last we do not know. We had the opening session as you know on Thursday, a week and a half ago. Last week we had the second session very successfully, so I was able to brief the Council and some detail about the outcome of the second session of trying to identify the issues to be discussed and to lay out an inventory and potential answers to these questions and then how we are preparing for in the next weeks for reconvening the Conference at political level.
And I am very encouraged, and I shared this with the Council that this is really an opportunity that should not be missed because the alternative of course, a failure is something that would be very negative in my view for Cyprus, for the Cypriots and for the regional setting. And I was glad to hear that this was echoed throughout the fifteen members of the Council that there is an awareness of the very important time that we are now in. And there are still key difficult issues to solve. Some of them are … to the Cypriots themselves and their outstanding issues and we all encourage the leaders to continue their step fast to overcoming those issues to resolve themselves. And then we have the international issues, the security and guarantee issues which are far from solved. But I want to report to you that, ladies and gentlemen of the Press, what I suggested to the Council is that I have felt throughout that the external players, the guarantors and of course the European Union which is an interested party and observer to this come with a strong commitment to find solutions, not to find more problems. There have been enough problems in Cyprus and is time to solve them, is possible in with reach and the Council is crucial and is important that the Council is crucial in this respect. I would now give the floor to Ms Elizabeth Spehar because of course a very important part of this is the discussion of the UN presence and what will happen with UNFICYP mandate.
Spehar: Thank you very much. Very good to see all of you here. Just a few points from my part. First of all to echo what we have heard from the other two speakers about of the importance of the unity of the Council on the Cyprus issue and the incredible support that they have always expressed to the two leaders, and the very important work and the remarkable progress that they have made thus far on the Cyprus negotiations. The Council was also very aware and then commended the role of the guarantors and all of these and other the relevant actors, and they have always shown very strong support to the UN presence on the ground, both the good offices mission facilitating on the talks as well as UNFICYP. And in that respect you just heard the President of the Council mentioning that the Council has agreed that there would be a renewal, a technical role of the UNFICYP mandate. We are very grateful for that and we are grateful for their continuing interest in support of our work. Some other things that the Council members highlighted with respect to UNICYP’s role which was appreciated as our support to the confidence building measures, we have seen this is a very important issue in Cyprus. Also in particular the work of the Committee on Missing Persons, the need for that work accelerated to continue to be supported, and also the issue of making sure the Resolution 1325, the Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security is fully reflected in the negotiations and indeed beyond in an eventual implementation of a deal. And on that, the Council has for some time now interested in how UNFICYP, how the UN is preparing on the ground and for contingency planning in the eventuality of a settlement. Of course the issue of implementation is about how Cypriots will eventually implement a deal, but we have been told clearly from the sides that they also would like strong UN support to help implement the deal. And so we have been encouraged by the Council to work in earnest in this issue and we would continue to do so but of course always guided by the continuing negotiations of the sides and some of the important issues that are still need to agree on which we would have a bearing on the support we can provide, and then of course what the sides precisely ask us to do as UN. As you this is leader lead and we are guided by the decisions of Cypriots themselves. Thank you.
Question: Mr Eide. It is the first time that the President of the Security Council comes along with the Special Adviser and having a statement. Could we assume that the Security Council is going to have a direct role in the Cyprus conference from now and on?
Eide: In my view that is no way… it should not because the Security Council is constantly involved. We have two missions, Elizabeth Spehar who is in charge of the peacekeeping mission and myself for the good offices and both for representing the UN. The Security Council works with the General Assembly, the highest body of the UN, so of course it is. And whatever comes out of this, it will be represented here because some of the follow up will have to happen at the level of the Security Council. Cyprus Conference has established as you know very well, as it is. It was set as a five parties Conference. It has one observer, the European Union which is an active interested party as an observer. That is the format of the Conference. There are the two sides of Cyprus and there are the guarantor powers. That is the format of the Conference. That has not changed. But the Security Council is there, before, during, and after the Conference.
Question: There are a number of issues, the issue of the ongoing Turkish military presence in the north, how you think, you know, anything you can say of the personal role of the Secretary General? Do you see there is an ongoing one? There are some reports, some spicy moments with the Greek Foreign Minister, maybe others, can you speak to that?
Eide: What I can say is that Secretary General, Mr António Guterres like his predecessor Mr Ban Ki-moon is taking a keen interest in this and expressed that very strongly when he came to the opening day of the international Conference and he is following this closing. I mean, I am in close touch with him, I have spoken to him several times and then I will meet him again tomorrow and discuss the way ahead. So his engagement is very, very clear and very committed as has been from Ban Ki-moon and of course Kofi Anan who was directly involved on the Anan Plan. So the Conference on the 12th, the opening day on the 12th of January concluded successfully in setting up a working group at the level of under-secretaries and deputies. And there was no … disagreement that when those group start meeting on the 13th or next week which was the 18th and they started on the 18th and that was a successful starting. So the Conference is on the well underway.
Question: Thank you very much. I would like to follow up on what my colleague just asked, particularly about the Turkey’s government insistence on keeping 21.000 soldiers in northern Cyprus. How big an obstacle is this on the list issues to overcome and do you foresee a speedy meeting again of the three guarantors of the Cyprus agreement?
Eide: Thank you. Well the three guarantors, they met now on the opening day, they met last week and they are in direct contact now as we speak, because they are exchanging views and they are working with us to prepare the next phase. The question of security and guarantees are basically two concrete questions, all embedded in the whole issue of security of Cyprus in the long run. Because one community rationally sees the presence of Turkish troops as part of the solution while the other community sees it as part of the problem. The starting possession of the Greek and the Greek Cypriots sides is that the guarantee system should be terminated and the troops should leave. The starting possession of the Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots is the opposite, the guarantees should be continued and the troops should stay, as you well know. However, we are already now in the setting where I feel I can say that, this is now that we are looking from a new eyes, they are there other mechanisms than the familiar ones which can assure that all Cypriots and both communities in Cyprus feel secure and all the connections to the international community and neighboring countries than those have traditionally seen that would fulfill the purpose of one without creating the uncertainty of the other. And is it easy? No. Is the will there to find solutions? Yes. And that is what we would be mostly our focus now and of course we continue to work with the sides in Cyprus, on domestic, on the intra Cyprus issues. There is now a new found will among all and I am happy to say that there seems to be a sense among all interested parties in looking for solutions that they can all live with it. They may not be exactly those that the people were seeking all those years but I think they will actually work. If I say more about this which will be interested in then I would start to reveling stuff that we have agreed not to talk about publicly, but I can say there is a constructive spirit surrounding these conversations.
Question: Thank you very much for this, for coming out. Now the Greek side as you said insists that Turkish soldiers may not stay on the island but on the other side the Turkish community was the one that was subject to manslaughter on the island when there were not Turkish troops. How can you assure that the Turkish community, you know the guarantees by Turkey or other guarantor should not exist?
Eide: I would like to repeat something I have said in Geneva in one of the Press conferences which then was already published. Security in Cyprus needs to be understood on several layers and particularly four of them. There is the need for having a settlement itself that ensures the political equality and the successful effective development of a federal solution, a strong united Cyprus, bi-zonal, bi-communal federation with inspired European principles. That is what I call settlement level or the constitutional level. Below that you have the level of internal security, have incredible legal and police mechanisms to take care of any kind of day-to-day uncertainty and insecurity. Then you need the level of implementation security which means both sides need to know that they do not only have a good deal on paper but it would be actually implemented and fourthly the issue of external security. Will there be, yes or no…some type of external help in providing for protection of Cyprus against foreign traditional or non-traditional … like terrorism etc. and … the issue of security into these layers we are looking for new questions with potential new answers which has to fulfill two criteria, both communities, which mean includes the Turkish Cypriot community needs to feel that this is for real and they can live safely in this settlement without any fear of repeating what they perceived as their historic drama of what happened to them in the 60s and until 1974. Well at the same time … reconfirm what we call Greek Cypriot drama which is related what happened in 1974 and onwards. So how you can combine these two and you cannot combine them by reading loud from the old script because we can do that in another ten years and we will still not have a settlement, so what we try to do now, what the leaders are trying to do with the help of the guarantor powers and others is to try to ask this question in a new way. And I am quite encouraged by that but as I said we have agreed not to reveal the exact details of these discussions because sometimes negotiations are best done if you do not have to do a running … and I am going to be loyal to that and so far actually the sides has also be quite loyal to that.
Question: A follow up question. Do you think that having these negotiations open ended how is the process, because how long this process will go on? What you foresee as the ending of these negotiations?
Eide: There is the window of opportunity which is not extremely long. But on the other hand, if we set a date it means that when that date comes, then we do not have a settlement everybody would say this has failed and they will think of alternatives which will be unpleasant to think about. So we do not want to say there is a specific date. But we do not need that because my very strong sense is that not only the two sides in Cyprus but also the other players involved are aware that there is a momentum now that is probably at the best of times, you know the circumstances which the solution can be found and if is wasted it will be to everybody detriment. So it is open ended in the sense that we do not have a specific end date but if not open ended that we are going to do this for many, many more months or years to come. Because then it will be over and I am actually convinced that this opportunity is gone and nobody knows when it will be recreated.
ΠΗΓΗ:http://www.pio.gov.cy/MOI/pio/pio2013.nsf/All/862AC8F466309728C22580B2002885E4?OpenDocument&L=G
