Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos made the following statement in response to journalists’ questions regarding his meeting yesterday with Turkish Foreign Minister A. Davutoglu and the two Ministers’ agreement to meetings with the negotiators for the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities:
“The President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, requested that the Greek government accept a meeting – on a level to be determined – with the negotiator for the Turkish Cypriot community, in order to facilitate the meeting of the negotiator for the Greek Cypriot community with the Turkish government. That is what we agreed on with Mr. Davutoglu. There was no mention whatsoever of a quadrilateral conference or any other involvement on the part of Greece. The two communities are provided for in the 1960 Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus, which is in effect, and negotiators have been appointed many times in the past. Moreover, the safeguarding of the international legal personality of the Republic of Cyprus, which is represented by its President and acts as a sovereign member state of the UN and the European Union, is of fundamental concern to us.
As I had the opportunity to tell the UN Secretary General, Greece supports President Anastasiades’ initiatives with the aim of a just, functional and viable solution within the framework of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, in line with the community acquis.”
September 24, 2013