Morning ladies and gentlemen just to say a quick word, we’re halfway through the Council’s business but I’m leaving, I’ll just say a word on the two issues we’ve been discussing in informal consultations this morning, one is Cyprus. The Council has decided on the basis of a briefing from the Special Adviser to the Secretary General, Alvaro de Soto, to issue a statement to you this morning which the President will bring to you and that’s his function. But I wanted to make it clear to you from the United Kingdom point of view, that we are disappointed that the Secretary General’s invitation to resume the search for a comprehensive settlement in New York this month was turned down by the Turkish side to these long-standing negotiations and discussions. That it is quite clear that Mr. Denktash, on the Turkish-Cypriot side, is not inclined to follow the Secretary General’s lead to try once and for all to find a settlement to the Cyprus problem. The Council has shown a very full support for the efforts of the Secretary General and the Special Adviser to take this issue forward and that will be expressed later this morning where the UK is very pleased to see that the Council has taken that position in pointing a finger at the side that has declined the Secretary General’s invitation.

The Secretary General and his Special Adviser have made it clear and I think will continue to make it clear that the conditions set, the principles set, by resolution 1250 which include the provision: there should be no preconditions to those talks, are essential and have not been met by the Turkish side and by Mr. Denktash and that they wish for those talks to begin in order to clear away comprehensively all the difficulties between the two sides. If one side doesn’t come to talk about clearing away the undergrowth as well as getting into the real solid part of the wood then that is a refusal to accept the invitation of the Secretary General’s good offices to move the thing forward. There’s no reason not to talk about everything but there must be no preconditions cause if one side sets preconditions then the other side will. 1250 is the Council’s text, is the Secretary General’s text and in the view of the Council clearly Mr. Denktash has not lived up to it.

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