The two leaders held their final meeting on Thursday, before they head to New York, with nothing to show two months after the visit of the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Cyprus. None of the conditions set by Guterres for an expanded 5+1 conference, that President Nikos Christodoulides has been calling for, have been met in these two months, thus ruling out any possibility of movement.

Guterres made this very clear at a news conference he gave ahead of next week’s UN General Assembly gathering. He would have no meeting with the two leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, he said, noting that “there is still much work to be done.” He still tried to sound positive, declaring that “We are determined to do everything possible for that (5+1 meeting) to take place when conditions are met for the meeting to be successful.” He was cautious because “we cannot repeat the mistakes of the past.”

Thursday’s meeting between Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman went well according to a UN communique, while the former described it as a “good meeting.” Erhurman agreed, saying the meeting was “better than the previous one.” At the meeting, Christodoulides presented new ideas on the confidence-building measures, the methodology and the substance of the Cyprus problem, and he said, “there was no negative response.”

Christodoulides, showing his tendency for putting a positive spin on everything, told reporters after the meeting that he believed “these new ideas on all three issues can lead us to positive developments.” He then put the pressure on Erhurman saying that “if the necessary political will exists the ideas could lead to developments as early as next week.” It is very doubtful there will be developments, because it is extremely unlikely the Turkish Cypriot leader would agree to a change of the agenda that was set by Guterres when he met the two leaders.

The fact is there is no agreement on confidence-building measures or methodology; and there has been zero progress on crossing points which have been on the table since the beginning of 2025. Under the circumstances it is difficult to understand the reasoning behind the new ideas, while ignoring the issues which Guterres had set out during his visit. Would it not have been wiser to work on the issues discussed with Guterres, considering that agreement on these was the condition for moving to the next stage – the 5+1 conference?

Coming up with new ideas that the other side would have to consider and respond to can only be viewed as a diversionary tactic. And there are specific issues on which the UNSG has demanded agreement was reached, as a condition for moving to the next stage. Changing the agenda by introducing new ideas will block rather than open the way to the expanded conference.