The President Spanish

The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. The Council is meeting in accordance with the understanding reached in its prior consultations.

After consultations among the members of the Council, I have been authorized to make the following statement on behalf of the Council:

"The Security Council commends the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders for the political leadership they have shown and warmly welcomes the progress made so far in the fully-fledged negotiations, and the leaders' joint statements.

"The Security Council strongly urges the leaders to increase the momentum in the negotiations to ensure the full exploitation of this opportunity to reach a comprehensive settlement based on a bicommunal, bizonal federation with political equality, as set out in the relevant Security Council resolutions.

"The Security Council emphasizes the importance of all parties engaging fully, flexibly and constructively and looks forward to decisive progress in the negotiations in the near future.

"The Security Council recognizes that a solution requires the support of both sides and will require the approval of both communities in separate and simultaneous referenda. In this context, the Security Council fully supports the Secretary-General's Good Offices Mission and encourages the Secretary-General's Special Adviser to continue to offer the leaders any support they need to achieve a settlement.

"The Security Council reiterates its full support for the process and underlines the benefits that reunification will bring to the island."

This statement will be issued as a document of the Security Council under the symbol S/PRST/2009/10.

The Security Council has thus concluded the present stage of its consideration of the item on its agenda.