President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erciurman will have a new meeting Tuesday, in view of the arrival of the UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy, Maria Angela Holguin. The meeting is scheduled for 11 am at the premises of the United Nations Good Offices Mission in Nicosia.
In the framework of the meeting the leaders will also have a joint meeting with the members of the Youth and Cultural Heritage Technical Committees and the Civil Society Body Council.
Yesterday, the President had a meeting with the Special Representative of the UN and Head of the Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, Khassim Diagne to whom he conveyed the Government’s continued desire that there be no violations or attempts to violate the status quo in the buffer zone by the Turkish Cypriot side.
?ext Friday a meeting of the President of the Republic is scheduled with the personal envoy of the UNSG and a joint meeting of the President of the Republic and Erhrman with Holguin has already been scheduled as well.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third. Repeated rounds of UN-led peace talks have so far failed to yield results due to Turkish intransigence. The latest round of negotiations, in July 2017 at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana ended inconclusively.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, whose term nears its end, announced he would convene another meeting in broader format, after adequate preparation, but gave no timeline. He secured to that end the consensus of both sides and of the guarantor powers. María Angela Holguín, Guterres’ Personal Envoy on Cyprus, is tasked to engage with the parties. Executive Vice-President Raffaele Fitto acts as the European Commission’s Special Representative for Cyprus, succeeding EU special envoy Johannes Hahn.