United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will discuss “efforts to advance the peace process and support stability on the island” during his visit to Cyprus, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Monday evening.
These efforts to support the peace process, he said, include “the work of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Cyprus”.
According to the Cyprus News Agency, Guterres arrived in Cyprus on Monday evening and was welcomed to the island by his Cyprus problem envoy Maria Angela Holguin and the UN’s special representative on the island Khassim Diagne.
Guterres will hold separate meetings, first with President Nikos Christodoulides and then with Erhurman, at their official residences on Tuesday morning. Later on Tuesday, he will visit the Committee on Missing Persons, before holding a tripartite meeting with both leaders on Wednesday at the UN’s good offices mission.
Earlier on Monday, Holguin had said that Guterres will “encourage” Cyprus’ two leaders to re-enter negotiations to bring about a solution to the Cyprus problem.
“The mission of [Guterres] is to facilitate, encourage the people and the leaders to look forward for a negotiation [process] and this is why he is coming. He is visiting Cyprus after pushing to support the Cyprus issue for almost ten years, so he is coming for that,” she said after meeting President Nikos Christodoulides.
She added that she hopes for “progress” to be achieved during Guterres’ visit to the island.
“I came from a long trip to Brussels and Ankara, with good meetings, talking on all the necessary points that we need for a push forward, and I am very happy to have the secretary-general here,” she said.
Following that meeting, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis described Guterres’ visit as “very important”.
He said the Greek Cypriot side hopes for the meeting to be “the beginning, the springboard which will lead to the convening of an enlarged meeting” on the Cyprus problem, which would involve the island’s two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the UN.
“Holguin informed the president about a series of contacts she had in the past programme,” he said, before saying of Holguin’s trip to Ankara, during which she met Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, that “we are realistic and aware of the many challenges which exist, mainly due to Turkish intransigence”.
Nonetheless, he said that “we have said from the very beginning that we should take into account the fact that [Guterres] has taken this initiative since March, following his own contracts, and the fact that he is personally investing time, as well as the institutional role he serves in this visit”.
He added that more regarding Turkey’s stance on the matter will be discussed between Christodoulides and Guterres on Tuesday.
Unconfirmed reports on Friday suggested that Fidan had told Holguin during their own face-to-face meeting in Ankara that a solution to the Cyprus problem must come about upon the basis of two states, though Fidan had last month signed a joint declaration with three European commissioners offering his support for Guterres’ efforts.
Letymbiotis on Monday stressed that “common ground exists” between the island’s two sides regarding a solution to the Cyprus problem, and that “that common ground is the UN security council resolutions”.
Later in the day, Holguin met Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman, and stressed that Guterres’ visit to the island is “the testament of [his] commitment” to solving the Cyprus problem.
Erhurman promised that “we will continue to contribute in good faith to [Guterres’] efforts to ensure that the meetings of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow are fruitful”, having said on Sunday said that it would not be correct to attach the meaning of a solution or the beginning of the end of anything to this visit”.
He added that “as always, we are carrying out our work in consultation with the authorities in the Republic of Turkey”, and said that “as has been the case until now, our guiding principle will continue to be the will of our people”.
In preparation for his arrival to Cyprus, Guterres had held a telephone conversation with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Sunday, while Christodoulides had himself prepared for Guterres’ visit by visiting Athens and meeting Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Mitsotakis had said of Guterres’ arrival that that with the secretary-general set to leave office at the end of this year, a sense of urgency has been created.
“Now is the time to explore the possibility of turning this into reality,” he told Christodoulides.
On Friday, Fidan had met Holguin in Ankara, with Holguin having arrived directly from Brussels, where she had met both European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the commission’s envoy for the Cyprus problem Raffaele Fitto in separate meetings.
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