Guterres ‘Remains Engaged’ Over Enlarged Cyprus Meeting

Dujarric said Guterres “looks forward to holding a broader informal meeting in the near future” on the matter.

A source close to the Turkish government told the Cyprus Mail on Thursday that the date being mentioned in diplomatic circles for the meeting is January 5.

Regarding the possibility of UN under-secretary-general for peacebuilding Rosemary DiCarlo visiting the island ahead of such a meeting, he said there is “no date yet announced”.

Dujarric’s statements come after reports surfaced during last week’s Cop29 climate meeting in the Azeri capital Baku that “all parties” had given their consent for an enlarged meeting to be held.

The Cyprus News Agency (CNA) reported that a “brief discussion” was held between Guterres and President Nikos Christodoulides in Baku, in which Guterres informed Christodoulides of progress.

Plans for such a meeting had been afoot since Christodoulides met Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar at an informal dinner in New York in October.

Christodoulides has in recent weeks been pictured in conversation with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan bot]h in Baku and at the European Political Community summit in Budapest, where he also sat around a coffee table with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Christodoulides told journalists after the meeting in Budapest that he had mentioned “several times” to Erdogan that the resumption of talks to solve the Cyprus problem can only be based on existing UN resolutions – in other words, on the basis of a bizonal, bicommunal federal solution with political equality.

A day earlier, Erdogan and Tatar had attended the Organisation of Turkic States (OTS) meeting in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek, where Erdogan had said  “the Turkic world is responsible for a fair solution in Cyprus.”

The exact specifications of the “enlarged meeting” are not yet known, with Christodoulides reportedly being in favour of a meeting involving the leaders of both communities and all three of Cyprus’ guarantor powers – Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom – as well as the UN, while Tatar has gone on the record as being against British involvement.

He had gone on the record before the informal dinner in October as having said that based on the lack of common ground found between Cyprus’ two sides, “an environment could be created for a 4+1 informal consultation.”

However, Christodoulides’ support for British involvement in talks extended to a visit to London last month.

There, he held a meeting with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at his official residence and said that he and Starmer are “on the same page” regarding the Cyprus problem.

“I consider it to be especially important that this meeting has taken place, taking into consideration that the new [British] government has just recently assumed its duties,” Christodoulides said after the meeting.

Source: Cyprus Mail