UN’s Ban Ki-Moon on his way

The BBC have an interesting piece on the Cyprus Problem.  They are reporting that the UN’s Secretary General is due in Cyprus this weekend to try and find some common ground that the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots can agree on.

From the article:

Progress is slow at talks aimed at reuniting Cyprus, so UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is arriving on the island on Sunday to inject some momentum.  Mr Ban will meet leaders of both communities, but time may be running out to find a solution, the BBC’s Europe correspondent Jonny Dymond reports.

…

At the Ledra Street crossing the next evening, the players take their places again – another peace protest, tourists finger embroidered tea towels, passport officers dawdle while smoking cigarettes.

Both ludicrous and depressing, this play feels like it has many more nights to run.

The full piece can be found here.  Jonny Dymond’s report, as part of Radio 4’s The World This Weekend,  should be available from Sunday via the iPlayer service.  It is worth noting that, for legal reasons, the BBC’s iPlayer is only available to those within the UK.  If a transcript becomes available we’ll try and link back to it.

It was back in September 2007 that we mentioned the new peace talks.   It was April 2008 that the Ledra Street crossing re-opened, giving a glimmer of hope that some progress might be forthcoming.  It was just last month that the previous president’s corpse was stolen; it has not yet been recovered.  It has been less than two weeks since the Orams lost the latest legal battle to regarding their house in the North built on land owned by a Greek Cypriot.

That any politician believes this can be solved is admirable.  Hopefully there will be inexhaustible supplies of both patience and strong coffee.

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