Seeking a fresher, fairer approach to the Cyprus issue, the Turkish Cypriot president has proposed establishing a cooperative relationship between the two states on the island, with both enjoying equal international status.
According to a document leaked to the media on Wednesday, Ersin Tatar, president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), made his six-point proposal to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for a sustainable settlement to the decades-long Cyprus dispute.
Tatar made the proposal during this week's three-day informal gathering in Geneva hosted by Guterres, with the participation of the Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders, and the foreign ministers of the islands' three guarantor countries-Turkey, Greece, and the UK.
"The Turkish Cypriot proposal is aimed at establishing a cooperative relationship between the two States on the island based on their inherent sovereign equality and equal international status," says the proposal.
It underlines that the Turkish Cypriot side did not come to this point overnight, "but after decades of long arduous negotiations that have ended in failure, having definitively exhausted all prospects for a bi-communal and bi-zonal federal settlement."
Tatar's document calls for "results-oriented, time-framed" negotiations for a lasting solution after the equal status and sovereign equality of the two states on the island is secured.
UN-led negotiations will focus on the future relationship between the two states, as well as property, security, and border adjustment, and relations with the EU, according to the document.
On this new basis, and under the auspices of the UN secretary-general, "a freely reached and mutually acceptable cooperative agreement" will be established, it says.
Any agreement reached as a result of these negotiations will face a vote in separate simultaneous referenda in the two states on the island, according to the proposal.
Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades was expected to submit a response to Tatar's proposition to Guterres during an evening meeting.
The informal talks, which started on Tuesday and are due to end Thursday, are meant to break the stalemate on the island and pave the way for future talks.
Cyprus has been mired in a decades-long struggle between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots, despite a series of diplomatic efforts by the UN to achieve a comprehensive settlement.
The island has been divided since 1964, when ethnic attacks forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety. In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aiming at Greece's annexation led to Turkey's military intervention as a guarantor power. The TRNC was founded in 1983.
The Greek Cypriot administration, backed by Greece, became a member of the EU in 2004, although most Greek Cypriots rejected a UN settlement plan in a referendum that year, which had envisaged a reunited Cyprus joining the EU.
