Talks show EU does not have mechanism for safety, security, says Turkish Cypriot leader

Expert-level talks in Mont Pelerin have showed the European Union cannot provide the kind of safety and constitutional status that Turkish Cypriots want because the bloc does not have such a mechanism, Turkish Cypriot President Mustafa Akıncı has said. 

"The point that came out in Mont Pelerin is very open and clear. It came out very clearly that the guarantees regarding the safety and [constitutional] status that Turkish Cypriots want cannot be provided by the EU," Akıncı said in an interview with private broadcaster NTV on Jan. 25. 

His remarks came a day before he met Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades on Jan. 26 at U.N.'s Good Offices in Nicosia under the auspices of the Deputy Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on Cyprus Elizabeth Spehar.

The talks were held on Jan. 18 and 19 in Switzerland's Mont Pelerin town, which followed one week after a five-party summit in Geneva on Jan. 12, to which the three guarantor states of the island, Turkey, Greece and the United Kingdom, attended alongside Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot administrations. 

The thorniest issues in the peace talks are topics on security and guarantee. While Greek Cyprus and Greece want the guarantor system to be scrapped and all Turkish troops on the island to withdraw, Turkish Cypriots, who were subjected to violence by Greek Cypriots before Turkey's intervention in 1974, and Turkey oppose the idea and say the guarantor system needs to continue, and Turkey would only withdraw its troops if the same amount of soldiers are to be stationed on the two sides of the island.

Akıncı said they wanted an intervention right for Turkey to be allowed in the proposed new system with a mandate decision to be given by the Turkish Cypriot parliament, a...