The UN said on Monday that Greek and Turkish Cypriot community leaders had agreed to resume negotiations in Geneva to conclude issues of security later in June.

The leaders agreed to meet after their talks were stalled over the terms of the meeting.

The agreement came at a four-hour dinner which the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, hosted for Cypriot President, Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader, Mustafa Akinci, at the UN Headquarters in New York.

Guterres said that he and the two leaders “agreed on the need to reconvene the conference on Cyprus in June”.

He added that all had agreed that the chapter on security and guarantees was of vital importance to the two communities.

“Progress in this chapter is an essential element in reaching an overall agreement and in building trust between the two communities in relation to their future security.”

Guterres demanded that the conference in Geneva should deal with the issue of security and guarantees as a matter of priority.

“These are issues which President Anastasiades raised persistently,” a Greek Cypriot diplomatic source said after the dinner, pointing to the need for a well-prepared Geneva Conference.

Akinci had insisted that the Geneva summit should be give-and-take on all pending issues making up the internal aspect of the Cyprus problem.

Cyprus was split into a Greek Cypriot south and a Turkish Cypriot north in 1974 when Turkey sent troops to the eastern Mediterranean island after a coup engineered by the military rulers of Greece.

Since then Turkey maintains a large number of troops in Cyprus.

Guterres said that his special adviser on Cyprus, Espen Eide, will engage with all participants “in preparation of a common document to guide discussions on security and guarantees”.

Eide is expected to contact the two Cypriot leaders and the three so-called guarantor powers of Cyprus, Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom to prepare a jointly-acceptable document on security and guarantees.

Guterres did not mention a specific date for the reconvened Geneva Conference on Cyprus, but Greek Cypriot sources in New York estimated that this would be during the last 10 days of June.

“The leaders agreed to continue in parallel the bi-communal negotiations in Geneva on all other outstanding issues, starting with territory, property and governance and power-sharing.

“The two leaders agreed that all issues will be negotiated interdependently and that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” Guterres said.

He promised to “reach out to the other participants of the conference, Greece, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the European Union as an observer”.

(Source: Xinhua/NAN)