Newsletters
The president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), Tufan Erhurman, and Greek Cypriot administration leader Nikos Christodoulides agreed to meet weekly going forward, following talks Wednesday in the Nicosia (Lefkosa) buffer zone that lasted nearly three hours.
The meeting, held at the United Nations Good Offices Mission office in the buffer zone, came after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the two leaders to step up preparations for long-stalled reunification talks.
A U.N. Peacekeeping Force statement issued after the talks said the effort shown by both leaders toward finding a solution to the Cyprus issue was welcomed, and that the two had "agreed to intensify their meetings and to meet once a week and more frequently, as circumstances may require" to make progress within the framework of efforts to resolve the Cyprus dispute.
The statement described the discussions as "constructive."
Wednesday's meeting was the first face-to-face session between Erhurman and Christodoulides since Guterres visited the island in July.
The two leaders previously held a one-on-one meeting on May 8 and a trilateral meeting with Guterres on July 29.
Guterres, who leaves office at the end of this year, was the first UN secretary-general to visit Cyprus since 2010.
He has personally taken the initiative to restart Cyprus talks, meeting separately in July with Christodoulides, leader of the Greek Cypriot administration, and Erhurman, president of Turkish Cyprus.
Guterres said last month he intends to convene new talks aimed at ending the decades-long Cyprus conflict, bringing together the island's leaders along with the three guarantor powers: Greece, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.
He said he did not want to hold further summits "without results," calling instead for "adequate preparation" to build confidence between the two sides.
He has not set a date for the proposed summit.
Cyprus has been mired in a decades-long dispute between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, despite diplomatic efforts by the United Nations to reach a comprehensive settlement.
Ethnic attacks starting in the early 1960s forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety.
In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at Greece's annexation of the island led to Türkiye's military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence.
Before the intervention, Turkish Cypriots made up around a fifth of the population of the island, which had seen years of inter-ethnic tension and violence.
The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was founded in 1983 as a result, and remains recognized only by Ankara, while the Greek Cyprus is a member of the European Union, which it joined in 2004, the same year Greek Cypriots single-handedly blocked a U.N. plan to end the dispute.
The island has seen an on-and-off peace process in recent years, including a failed 2017 initiative in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, under the auspices of guarantor countries Türkiye, Greece and the United Kingdom.
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
1 min read
1 min read
