UN Secretary General’s Special Adviser on Cyprus Espen Barth Eide pointed out the determination of TRNC President Mustafa Akıncı and leader of Greek Cypriot administration Nikos Anastasiades on the process and announced that the two leaders agreed on the establishment of a Technical Committee on Education.
The joint statement delivered by the leaders after their sixth and last meeting in November was read by the UN Secretary General`s Special Adviser on Cyprus Espen Barth Eide to the press.
Eide state that the leaders discussed a number of issues in most of the chapters in depth and have made further progress.
Stating that the leaders have achieved a better understanding of each other’s concerns, Eide added that they feel more hopeful and confident that the outstanding issues could be resolved in the near future in the course of their negotiations.
The Committee to be established will review existing research and good practices in education in Cyprus and abroad and undertake new relevant research on how education can contribute to conflict transformation, peace, reconciliation and the countering of prejudice, discrimination, racism, xenophobia and extremism.
The Committee also work on devising a mutually acceptable mechanism for the implementation of confidence building measures in schools of the two educational systems and promote contact and co-operation between students and tutors from the two communities.
Eide said “The leaders will continue to meet frequently in the month of December. Meetings at leaders’ level have been scheduled for 4th, 15th and 20th December 2015. They also decided to make a joint visit to the laboratory of the Committee on Missing Persons on 20 December,” he concluded.