Nicosia, Cyprus. Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman said he has rejected President Nikos Christodoulides’ proposal to draw up a new list of convergences between the island’s two sides. He said convergences reached up to the 2017 negotiations in Crans-Montana should be preserved.
Position after meeting with UN secretary-general
Speaking upon his return to Cyprus from his meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Erhurman said his position aimed “to prevent the process from starting from scratch”.
Reference to past negotiation experience
Erhurman said that when former Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat and late president Demetris Christofias began talks, they were told the Annan plan was externally prepared and that the two leaders could start from scratch and do better. He said the process restarted and took a long time, but that the resulting rapprochements essentially did not go beyond the framework of the Annan plan.
Opposition to comparing separate convergence lists
Erhurman said that starting from scratch led to time being lost while the point reached remained unchanged, adding that accepting the convergences up to Crans-Montana in principle would prevent a debate over “your convergence, my convergence”. He said that at the last meeting Christodoulides came with a thick file outlining what he assessed as convergences and proposed that both sides compare their lists, an approach Erhurman said he wanted to avoid.
Call for solution-focused, time-limited talks
Erhurman said that if the process became a matter of competing convergence lists, “there will be no convergences left and every topic will be reopened for negotiation”. He said his stance was in favour of the process rather than either side, adding that he did not want negotiations for the sake of negotiations and that this time he wanted negotiations for the sake of a solution. He also said he wanted negotiations to be time-limited to prevent an open-ended and endless negotiation.
Do you support keeping the Crans-Montana convergences as the basis for future negotiations?
