Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci meet on Sunday for the last time in 2015, in the context of the ongoing UN-led peace talks.
Prior to the meeting, the two will visit the anthropological laboratory of the Committee on Missing Persons located in the United Nations Protected Area.
On November 25, delivering a statement on behalf of the two leaders, UN Secretary General`s special adviser on Cyprus Espen Barth Eide said the leaders had made further progress and had achieved a better understanding of each other’s concerns. They felt more hopeful and confident that the outstanding issues could be resolved in the near future in the course of their negotiations.
Negotiators of the two sides have been meeting on a nearly daily basis in order to discuss and to prepare the leaders’ meetings.
President Anastasiades, in his statements after the meeting, said that he is not giving up hope to see the peace talks succeed, but stressed that the same good needs to be shown by both sides.
“I am not abandoning hope for a successful outcome of our efforts, as long as there is the same good intention from both sides,” he added.
He pointed out that so far the intention to achieve convergence of views is there, noting at the same time that there are also difficulties.
“I hope that we will overcome those difficulties through understanding the concerns of each of the two communities”, he said.
The latest round of negotiations began in May this year, aiming to reunite Cyprus under a federal roof, divided since the 1974 Turkish invasion