President Mehmet Ali Talat has said that despite differences in views between the technical committees and working groups established by the two sides, the general working atmosphere was positive and constructive. He said that full-fledged negotiations will commence in June as planned unless one of the two sides backs out.

In an interview to the TAK news Agency, the President said that he was receiving information and reports on progress achieved by the technical committees and working groups on a systematic and daily basis.

Pointing out that all issues concerning the Cyprus Problem were being discussed, but not negotiated by the technical committees and working groups, the President said that he and the Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias will be evaluating the overall progress achieved by the committees when they meet next week on the 23rd of May.

Asked to comment on the Greek Cypriot leader’s statement that the June negotiations could be postponed, the President said that the initial agreement was that talks would start in June.“There is no need to postpone the talks under the current circumstances. The talks will go ahead as planned unless one of the two sides backs out” he said.

Talat also said that with the start of the negotiations in June, the UN Secretary General will be appointing a new special envoy to Cyprus who will carry out the same duties as the former special envoy Alvara De Soto.

Reminded about discussions on the basis of the negotiations, President Talat said that the Turkish Cypriot Side had insisted on bringing the Annan Plan back to the negotiating table but that they had failed to persuade the Greek Cypriots into accepting this. “We have agreed to allow both sides to bring whatever issues they want to the negotiating table” he added. President also added that, however, the topics and the agendas were stated for the committees. He said “in short the ground is the UN parameters and the body of work discussed during the past negotiation processes. For example while the judicial powers are discussed the Annan Plan and the Gali Set of Ideas would be taken as a reference.”

Explaining that preparations for full-fledged negotiations were going on at full speed, Talat stressed the issues of property and territorial arrangements were the two hardest topics to negotiate on.
“The property is an extremely complicated issue because it involves everyone, every individual. Ownership of properties have changed many hands over the past 30-40 years” he said, adding that Turkish and Greek Cypriots were also extremely sensitive on the issue of property.

Pointing out that territorial arrangements and adjustments was the other difficult issue on the Cyprus Problem, President Mehmet Ali Talat said “determining maps and boundaries of founding states is a concise and thorny issue which requires a great degree of careful planning. We however have not carried out a such study because maps can only be discussed if considerable progress has been achieved.”
On the issues of the guarantees, the President said that this was not difficult issue for the Turkish Cypriot Side as the guarantees were part of international agreements.

He said that the Turkish Cypriot did not support the idea of abandoning the guarantees.
As for the issues of citizenship and population brought up frequently by the Greek Cypriot leadership, Talat said he didn’t think these issues will become problems.
Pointing out that the continuation of the non-solution on the island will create serious difficulties for Turkey, the President said problems faced in Turkey’s membership process will have an adverse affect on the Cyprus negotiations process.