During his forthcoming visit to Cyprus, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres will meet twice with the President of the Republic, Nikos Christodoulides, and the Turkish Cypriot leader, Tufan Erhürman.
The first meeting will take place during a private dinner on the evening of Tuesday, 28 July, at the residence of the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Cyprus. The second will be held on the morning of Wednesday, 29 July, during a joint meeting at the offices of the UN Good Offices Mission in the UN-controlled area of Nicosia International Airport.
Guterres is due to arrive in Cyprus on the evening of Monday, 27 July, accompanied by two UN Under-Secretaries-General, Rosemary DiCarlo and Jean-Pierre Lacroix. The Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy on Cyprus, María Ángela Holguín, will also be on the island during his visit.
According to information obtained by CNA, on the morning of Tuesday, 28 July, Guterres will meet President Christodoulides at 10:30 a.m., followed by a meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhürman at 11:45 a.m.
At midday, he will lay a wreath at the memorial to fallen UN peacekeepers outside the Ledra Palace Hotel, in the Nicosia buffer zone. Early in the afternoon, he will visit the Committee on Missing Persons’ anthropological laboratory. Later, he is scheduled to meet the two sides’ negotiators, the heads of the bicommunal Technical Committees, and representatives of civil society.
In the evening, the Secretary-General will host a private dinner with the two leaders. According to CNA sources, the dinner will not be open to media coverage.
On the morning of Wednesday, 29 July, Guterres will hold a joint meeting with the two leaders at the offices of the UN Good Offices Mission at Nicosia Airport. This will be followed by a press conference by the Secretary-General, after which he and his delegation will depart Cyprus.
The visit will be the first by a UN Secretary-General to Cyprus since February 2010, when Ban Ki-moon visited the island and met the then leaders, Demetris Christofias and Dervis Eroglu.
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.
After informal meetings in 2025, followed by a hiatus of several months, deliberations are underway for a new meeting in broader format to be held, as the term of the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres nears its end. María Angela Holguín, Guterres’ Personal Envoy on Cyprus, is tasked to engage with the parties.