Leaders of divided Cyprus agree to meet weekly after UN chief’s visit

Divided Cyprus’ rival leaders agreed to hold weekly meetings following talks on Wednesday, after UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged them to step up preparations for long-stalled reunification talks.

Guterres has personally undertaken the initiative to get Cyprus talks back on track, visiting the island in July for meetings with Nikos Christodoulides, president of the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus in the Greek-speaking south, and Tufan Erhürman, the pro-unification leader of the Turkish-occupied north.

Wednesday’s sit-down in Cyprus’ UN-controlled buffer zone was the first time the pair have met face to face since Guterres’ visit and was seen as an important step in laying the groundwork for a UN-led peace push.

A brief United Nations statement issued after the “constructive” discussions said the leaders had “agreed to intensify their meetings and to meet once a week and more frequently, as circumstances may require.”

Guterres had said last month that he would convene new talks on ending the half-century-long Cyprus conflict, bringing together the island’s leaders and its three guarantor powers: Greece, Turkey and the UK.

At the same time, however, he insisted he did not want more summits “without results,” demanding “adequate preparation” to build confidence.

He did not offer a date for the proposed summit.

Guterres, who leaves office at the end of this year, was the first UN secretary-general to visit the Mediterranean island since 2010.

Cypriot government spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis said earlier on Wednesday that the discussions would centre on the substance of the Cyprus issue.

He also said opening new crossing points to improve movement across the buffer zone was a confidence-boosting measure under consideration.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied the northern third of the island in response to an Athens-engineered Greek Cypriot coup seeking unification with Greece.

Before the invasion, Turkish Cypriots made up around a fifth of the population of the former Ottoman and British colony where there had been years of inter-ethnic tension and violence.

Today Cyprus comprises the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which declared independence in 1983 but is only recognised by Ankara, and the EU member Republic of Cyprus in the south.

The last major round of peace talks collapsed in Switzerland in July 2017.

Additional sources • AFP