United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday “exchanged views on the Cyprus problem” when they met on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York, the UN said.

“The secretary-general and the president exchanged views on Cyprus, the war in Ukraine, as well as the situation across the Middle East,” it said.

The meeting came after Erdogan gave his address to the general assembly, in which he said that “the sovereign equality and equal international status of the Turkish Cypriot people” must be recognised.

“I call upon the international community to recognise and establish political, diplomatic, and economic relations with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,” he said, before adding that “the inhumane isolation to which [the Turkish Cypriots] have been subjected must finally come to an end”.

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On the Cyprus problem, the UN’s “high-level week” has begun with no concrete progress having been made since Guterres visited the island in July. 

Then, he had promised to hold an enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem on the Cyprus problem, involving the island’s two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the UN, “after adequate progress” is achieved confidence-building measures, the meeting’s methodology and the substance of the talks.

President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman have met on three separate occasions since July, but no concrete progress has been achieved in that time, with the sides still in open disagreement over the meaning of political equality, crossing points, and the methodology of the talks. 

In addition, throughout the summer, initiatives had been taken by the Greek Cypriot side to cancel international events being held by the Turkish Cypriot community, including a children’s football camp organised by FC Barcelona and a music festival in Kyrenia.

Christodoulides hints at ‘behind-the-scenes’ meetings

This prompted Erhurman to warn that such initiatives “undermine trust” between the island’s two sides, stressing last week that “if we wish to move the process forward, it is crucial to create the ‘conducive climate’ mentioned by Guterres”.

Nonetheless, Christodoulides on Monday said that “behind-the-scenes” meetings in New York this week may hold the key to developments occurring on the Cyprus problem.  

“What I can tell you is that I did indeed mention that we are not ruling out positive developments, because, from the moment we arrived here, we have observed numerous meetings, which I would characterise as behind the scenes, or out of the public eye,” he said. 

Those meetings, he said, are “aimed at creating the conditions this week, with all involved parties present in New York, for positive developments to occur”.

Erhurman, meanwhile, stressed that the Turkish Cypriot side is seeking “a five-plus-one meeting where success is guaranteed in advance through preparatory meetings in Nicosia and negotiations which, in line with our people’s will for a solution, will actually lead us to a resolution this time”, with “five-plus-one” another term for an enlarged meeting.

He said that his stance on the prospect of holding such a meeting “echoes the secretary-general’s statements, expressed both after Crans-Montana – that ‘this time must be different’ – and at his recent press conference – that ‘the mistakes of the past must not be repeated’”.