As UN-mediated indirect talks aimed at ending the 26-year-old partition of Cyprus continued Saturday, Turkey repeated its support for a solution that would turn the island into a two-state confederation.
"If a mutually acceptable settlement is sincerely sought, then the model is quite clear: based on the realities of Cyprus, a confederation consisting of two states," Turkey's Foreign Affairs Minister Ismail Cem told the UN General Assembly.
The model would mean the Greek and Turkish entities will have to transfer some of their powers to the confederation, Cem said.
"(Turkey) supports president Denktash's proposals," he added.
Greek Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash are currently at the United Nations conducting talks through a UN mediator, but the two have not met face-to-face.
This round of negotiations, which began Tuesday, is the fourth since last December. All three previous rounds failed to move beyond even procedural disputes.
Cyprus has been divided into a Turkish-controlled north and Greek-controlled south since 1974, when Turkey occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-engineered coup seeking to unite Cyprus with Greece – UNITED NATIONS (AFP)
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