The President of the Republic of Cyprus Demetris Christofias accompanied by the Presidential Commissioner George Iacovou, Government Spokesman Stefanos Stefanou and the Special Adviser to the President Toumazos Tselepis arrived yesterday afternoon in New York. Today the delegates will have a joint meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu at the UN headquarters.
Upon his arrival President Christofias did not make any statements to the press.
According to the UN program, the Secretary General will host a lunch for the leaders of the two communities and a joint meeting of the leaders and their advisers with the Secretary General will follow at 3 p.m east coast time.
Christofias had a meeting yesterday afternoon in New York with Special Adviser of the UN Secretary General on Cyprus Alexander Downer. Downer was accompanied by his assistant Sonja Brachman and the Director of the Europe Division at the Department of Political Affairs of the United Nations Organization Elizabeth Spehar.
After the meeting Downer made the following statement to the press:
“I have spent an hour or so with Mr. Christofias and obviously I am going to spend a bit of time with Mr. Eroglu in preparation for the meeting with the
Secretary General tomorrow that will begin with a working lunch and a meeting during the course of the afternoon. We have to see how it goes. I hope that it will be a productive meeting and that the negotiations will develop some new momentum. Because those negotiations have lost momentum and we want them to see if this will help to give them a bit of new momentum”.
Replying to a question on whether the agenda of the meeting has been agreed Downer stated: “The Secretary General has a plan for how he wants the meeting to go and I don’t think there will be any problem for the two leaders. They will be happy about it”.
Government Spokesman Stefanos Stefanou made the following statement regarding the meeting of President Christofias with Downer:
“The President of the Republic met with Mr Downer. Of course, the objective was the meeting with the United Nations Secretary General and with the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community Mr Eroglu. This was also a continuation of the meetings that were held in Cyprus. From there on, the President is completely ready for the meeting tomorrow, which will take place also on the basis of what we discussed at the Informal Leader’s Council”.
See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!
