Turkish Cypriot head says deal possible ‘within months’

ISTANBUL

Cyprus and its decades-old unsolved ethnic conflict is close to a solution “within months,” said Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci on Thursday.

“If we continue with this will and determination, it is possible to reach a solution within months,” Akinci told Anadolu Agency in Istanbul.

He was speaking just after a conference on the future of Cyprus at Kadir Has University.

“We do not need years [to reach a solution] but there is a need to make some progress on [some] main issues,” Akinci said.

Turkey’s EU minister Volkan Bozkir said earlier this month that an anticipated referendum on Cypriot reunification would likely to be held in the first half of 2016.

When asked his opinion on the date of a possible referendum Akinci said: “I do not give a date.”

“The issue depends on the content of the solution we will reach,” he added: “Our bid is to make both sides say ‘yes’.

“It is not enough just to measure turning the ‘no’ vote in the South to a ‘yes’; we need to take precautions to preserve the ‘yes’ vote in the North as well,” Akinci said.

The Mediterranean island has been dived since Turkey’s 1974 military intervention.

In 2004, a referendum based on a plan by then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was held on both sides of the island. The plan was approved by the Turkish community but rejected by the Greek population.

The Greek Cypriot government, an EU member since 2004, is recognized internationally.

The Turkish Cypriot government – in the island’s northern third – is only recognized by Ankara.

Akinci, a leftist moderate, has been negotiating with his Greek counterpart Nicos Anastasiades since last May, just after took his post as the president.

The 68-year-old leader said that the ongoing talks were mainly about six topics and the both sides were very close to reaching reconciliation on three of them.

“One of them is administration and power-sharing, the second one is the economy and the third one is the EU,” Akinci said during his speech at the conference.

The remaining topics are property, territory plus ‘security and guarantees’.

Noting that the Greek and Turkish sides have already made big progress on these three topics, Akinci said: “I believe we can reach reconciliation on these three topics in a short time if we can reach assent points and see where we are going on other three topics.”

“The rotating presidency issue, which is for us an indicator of political equality, is still open,” he added, saying: “We have not come to an agreement but I see this as a topic on which we can agree.”

When U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Cyprus on Dec. 4 to encourage peace talks, he said that an end to partition “within reach”.

“I am more convinced than ever that a resolution to the longstanding division of Cyprus is within reach, and with it, the many benefits of unity for all the people of the island," he said after meeting Turkish and Greek leaders.