President Mehmet Ali Talat has said he expects comprehensive negotiations aimed a finding a solution to the Cyprus Problem to being in September.

In an interview to the CNN-Turk news channel, the President said that a date for the start of fully-fledged negotiations will come out of Friday’s meeting with the Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris Christofias, most probably for September.

He expressed the view that the comprehensive negotiations will be the starting point of a new process on the Cyprus Problem.

Underlining the importance of attaining political equality with the Greek Cypriot Side, the President said that the principle of political equality must be engraved within the decision making mechanism of the partnership state to be created.Talat however said that an agreement on the presidential system had not yet been reached.

Also touching upon the issue of guarantees, Talat said it was out of the question to abolish or abandon Turkey’s effective guarantee.“Both treaties of guarantee and alliances are international treaties” he stressed, reminding that neither side in Cyprus were signatories to the treaties.

Pointing out that there were a several ‘red line’ issues in negotiations carried out with the Greek Cypriot Side such as Turkey’s effective guarantee, political equality, bi-zonality and the two founding constituent states, Talat said that apart from these issues the Turkish Cypriot Side was ready and open to discussing everything.