President of the Republic Nikos Christodoulides has said that the UN Secretary General has demonstrated his political will by convening the trilateral meeting that took place last week in New York.
UNSG met with the two leaders President Christodoulides and T/c leader Ersin Tatar last week in New York city. A new meeting will probably take place in November. In the meantime, his personal envoy Maria Angela Holguin is expected in Cyprus the next weeks to prepare the new meeting.
In statements to the media in Limassol, before attending a meeting of the European Investment Bank, and replying to questions, the President stressed that taking into account the developments and the voting process for a new leader of the Turkish Cypriot community in the Turkish occupied territories of Cyprus (to take place in October) the meeting in New York could not have led to an outcome.
However, he noted that it is important that the UN Secretary General, “nevertheless, although he was aware of this fact, proceeded with the organisation of this meeting, demonstrating thus his political will, something that he mentioned in his introductory comments”.
President Christodoulides said that they expect that afterwards the UNSG’s Personal Envoy on Cyprus, Maria Angela Holguin, will visit Cyprus, as the UN Secretary General himself had told them.
“It was something that we also requested, and that she visit both the guarantor powers (Greece, Turkey, UK) and Brussels, so that the ground can be prepared for the meeting (informal meeting on broader format) before the end of the year, with the sole objective, to enter to the essence of the Cyprus problem, which is the resumption of talks”, he underlined.
Meanwhile, invited to comment on statements by Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar that the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, during their informal trilateral meeting in New York last week, had not said that the Cyprus talks would resume from the point where they had been interrupted in Crans-Montana, in 2017, the President of the Republic said that “I heard the statements of Mr. Tatar and all those on the Greek Cypriot side who consciously choose to believe Mr. Tatar and not the President of the Republic of Cyprus”.
Fortunately, he added, there were six people at the meeting. “I was not alone, I was accompanied by the Negotiator and the Permanent Representative”, he said.
Asked whether this should had been mentioned in the UN Secretary General’s press release, the President of the Republic said that it was a general announcement and reiterated that “we were not alone at the meeting and I am surprised, not by what Mr. Tatar says, because I did not expect him to say anything different, but by those on the Greek Cypriot side who choose to believe Mr. Tatar and not the President of the Republic of Cyprus. I repeat, it was a meeting in the presence of others.”
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. The latest round of negotiations, in July 2017 at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana ended inconclusively.