Bernard Allen (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 131: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on recent moves made by the United States and the Greek Cypriots to reopen talks regarding the unification of Cyprus. [17475/05]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The United Nations has the lead role in the search for a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem. However, the EU enlargement process provided the impetus for the most recent efforts towards a settlement, which were undertaken by the UN Secretary General in the first half of 2004, during Ireland's EU Presidency.

As a result of the referendums in Cyprus on 24 April 2004, the accession to the EU of a united Cyprus on 1 May 2004 was not possible. On 28 May, the UN Secretary General submitted a comprehensive report to the Security Council on his mission of good offices. He noted that the unsuccessful outcome represented another missed opportunity to resolve the Cyprus problem and concluded that there was no apparent basis for resuming the good offices effort while the stalemate continued. The process has remained under consideration in the UN Security Council since then.

However, following discussions with Secretary General Kofi Annan in Moscow earlier this month, the President of Cyprus, Tassos Papadopoulos, sent an envoy to New York last week for preliminary, informal talks with senior officials in the UN Secretariat. As a result of these discussions, the Secretary General has asked Kieran Prendergast, the Under Secretary General for Political Affairs, to travel to Cyprus, Athens and Ankara next week to listen to the views of all parties on the future of the mission of good offices on Cyprus. It will be for the Secretary General to decide, on the basis of these consultations, whether a further effort will be possible in the search for a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem.

The Government has strongly supported Secretary General Annan in his mission of good offices. The EU remains ready to accommodate a settlement of the Cyprus problem based on the Secretary General's proposals and in line with the principles on which the Union is founded. The objective we all share is an agreed comprehensive settlement, which will enable the people of Cyprus to live together as citizens of a united Cyprus in the European Union. I hope that in the coming weeks all parties will engage constructively with the United Nations to create the conditions in which real progress can be made towards the achievement of that objective.