United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is hosting talks next week in Geneva to discuss the future of Cyprus, as views toward the divided island’s political fate remain incompatible.
“The informal meeting … will provide an opportunity for a meaningful discussion on the way forward on the Cyprus issue,” said U.N. spokesperson Michele Zaccheo at a Geneva press briefing on Friday.
Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, and representatives from Greece, Türkiye and Britain will be part of the talks.
The foreign minister of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu, last week downplayed the likelihood of progress.
“The Greek Cypriots want to use the opportunity (meeting) to … pick up the negotiation from where they were left off (in 2017),” Ertuğruloğlu told Reuters recently. “For us, it is an opportunity to reiterate how we see the way forward: two separate, sovereign, equal states.”
“There is no likelihood of establishing a partnership with the Greek Cypriots so why bother? Why insist on a proven failure of a formula? It’s our question to the United Nations,” he added.
The conflict has long been on the agenda of the U.N., which has kept a peacekeeping force on the island since 1964.
The island of Cyprus has been mired in a decadeslong struggle between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, despite a series of diplomatic efforts by the U.N. to achieve a comprehensive settlement. Five decades of Cyprus talks have led nowhere.
In the early 1960s, ethnic attacks forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety. In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aiming 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.
The TRNC was founded in 1983.
The island has seen an on-and-off peace process in recent years, including a failed 2017 initiative in Switzerland.
The Greek Cypriot administration entered the European Union in 2004, the same year that Greek Cypriots thwarted the U.N.’s Annan plan to end the decadeslong dispute, which had envisaged a reunited Cyprus joining the EU.
The status of the island remains unresolved in spite of a series of negotiations over the years.
While Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration supported a federation in Cyprus, Türkiye and the TRNC insisted on a two-state solution that reflected the realities of the island.
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