UN Assistant Secretary-General Jenca to visit Ankara on Wednesday

WASHINGTON

UN Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas, Miroslav Jenca, will head to Ankara for talks Wednesday and Thursday, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The visit comes after Jenca’s talks in Cyprus earlier this week.

Jenca held talks with Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders "as part of the UN's continued engagement with the parties to explore common ground on the way forward on the Cyprus issue," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a news conference.

Dujarric noted that recent developments on the ground and a mandate of the UN Peacekeeping Force (UNFICYP) in Cyprus were discussed.

Jenca's talks in Cyprus came weeks after UN peacekeepers intervened Aug. 18 in road construction work to link the Turkish Cypriot village of Pile in the buffer zone with the rest of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

Turkish Cypriot President Ersin Tatar told reporters following a meeting Monday that he informed Jenca that the "Pile-Yigitler road construction plan is a humanitarian project and was born out of necessity."

Tatar told Jenca that UN peacekeepers' move to prevent the construction of a "humanitarian" road connecting the Pile and Yigitler villages is "unacceptable."