Presidential Spokesman Hasan Erçakıca, in his weekly press conference held yesterday (31 October) clarified news appeared in the press recently, regarding the invitation of Finland’s Foreign Ministry for a four-party meeting.

It was reported that President Mehmet Ali Talat would visit Brussels as the official guest of EU Term President Finland’s Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja on Friday (3 November). President will meet with Tuomioja at 5 pm on the same day.

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Turgay Avcı will go to Finland to participate to a meeting organized by Finland’s Foreign Ministry on 5-6 November in Helsinki.

It was stated that President Talat had conveyed his view that Greece should also participate the meeting in Helsinki.

In the meantime, the European Affairs Director at the Finnish Foreign Ministry – Kare Hallonen yesterday morning had a meeting in Lefkoşa with the Presidential Undersecretary Raşit Pertev.

In his press conference, Erçakıca said:

The efforts of the Greek Cypriot side aimed at neutralizing the European Union (EU) and United Nations (UN) process and asserting a claim such as "the Cyprus Issue can not be associated with the EU membership of Turkey", has been evaluated as an insincere approach by the TRNC Presidency.

It has been stated that the Greek Cypriot side is striving to neutralize the efforts spent for reaching a solution to the Cyprus Issue under the umbrella of the UN.

Presidential Spokesman Hasan Erçakıca stated that the Greek Cypriot Administration has not spent any efforts to reach a conclusion concerning any of the proposals and initiatives put forward by the UN Special Representative for Cyprus, Michael Möller, aimed at implementing the agreement reached between President Mehmet Ali Talat and the Greek Cypriot Leader Tassos Papadopoulos on 8^th July 2006.

Underlining that the purpose of the Greek Cypriot side is to gain advantages on the Cyprus Issue by exploiting the powers granted to them as a result of their unfair EU membership and to move forward on the way to their "osmosis" dream, Spokesman Erçakıca added “the Turkish Cypriot side is well-aware of these tricks”.

Spokesman Erçakıca stated that in spite of all the opportunities they possess, the said efforts of the Greek Cypriot side cannot be influential enough and said "Despite complications, the attention of the EU members is focused on maintaining a problem free negotiation process concerning the EU membership of Turkey after overcoming the problems created by the Greek Cypriot side."

Presidential Spokesman Hasan Erçakıca stated that the Turkish Cypriot side has reached a consensus on two issues concerning this process and listed these two issues as follows:

"The first issue is the fact that no settlements which will be achieved by a negotiation process excluding the Turkish Cypriot side shall be accepted. All the parties of our political spectrum have finely scrutinized the said issue and expressed their reactions. The second important issue is the agreement regarding the impossibility of negotiating any package including the fenced area of Varosha unless the isolations imposed on Turkish Cypriots are lifted. The said agreement also underlines that, within this framework, international flights to Ercan Airport must be started. This consensus of opinion should be taken into consideration by everyone seeking solutions to the problems and particularly, by the EU Term Presidency and the United Nations".

Speaking at the Cyprus TV, Prime Minister Ferdi Sabit Soyer said that the Turkish Cypriot Side did not agree with the Finnish proposal, but ready to negotiate.

Saying that the Turkish Cypriot Side is not rejecting the proposal Soyer said:

"After all these negotiations the Cyprus issue is entering a different process. TRNC Foreign Minister Turgay Avcı will participate to the meeting in Finland, which will be held at the Foreign Ministers level. At this point, everyone should acknowledge that solution is not possible without the Turkish Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots have the same right of say, decision and the political determination as much as the Greek Cypriots in determining the future of Cyprus."

Pointing to the fact that one of the four countries who said no to the Financial Aid Regulation was the Greek Cypriot administration, Prime Minister Soyer said: "the Greek Cypriot administration with this stance, has become the only country which rejected a financial aid to be made to people living its own country. We are faced with an administration, which doesn’t want the economic development of the people, whom it will live together in case of a possible solution."