Under the title Turkish Foreign Minister warns of Cyprus miss, Turkish daily Hurriyet Daily News (online, 17.01.12) reports that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met yesterday with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moons special adviser to Cyprus, Alexander Downer.
Ankara urged Downer to schedule a multilateral conference with the participation of guarantor states during the New York meeting, according to the paper.
During his meeting with Downer, Davutoglu also noted the flexible stance of Turkish Cypriots while pursuing Cyprus talks, diplomatic sources said.
On the same issue, Turkish daily Sabah (17.01.12) reports that during the meetings with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Beirut and Bans special adviser in Cyprus Alexander Downer in Ankara, Davutoglu alleged that the Greek Cypriot administration, as he refers to the Republic of Cyprus, sent intentionally weapons to Syria. Davutoglu also informed Downer that during a search in a Russian vessel documents showed that 60 ton of dangerous cargo was unloaded. He added that according to the vessels documents the 60 ton of dangerous cargo was unloaded in Syria before docking to Alexandretta port.
In a statement to the paper, Turkeys Foreign Ministry spokesperson Selcuk Unal claimed: The ship, which took permission from the Greek Cypriot sector to transfer munitions to Syria, docked at the port of Iskenderun (Alexandretta) two days ago. Turkish customs officials finished yesterday the inspection of the vessel. In the documents appears that 59 thousands 422 kg of dangerous cargo was unloaded at Tartus port.