Negotiations aimed at reuniting the divided island have been stalled since 2017.
The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he would have liked more results from his meetings with the rival leaders of the divided island of Cyprus, while the Turkish Cypriot leader said he was “very, very upset” that there was no agreement on opening four new border crossings.
Guterres on Thursday called the meetings at the UN in New York “constructive” and pointed to progress on four of the six initiatives that the leaders had agreed to in March. He cautioned, however, that “there’s a long road ahead.”
The Mediterranean island was divided in 1974 when Turkiye invaded, following a coup by Athens’ military government-backed supporters to unite the island with Greece.
Mass deaths and displacement of the Greek Cypriot population followed as the island’s northern third was occupied – only Turkiye recognises a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence, and it maintains more than 35,000 troops in the north.
Negotiations between the rivals have been stalled since 2017. When asked whether he would start a new round, Guterres responded that there is more to be done before any negotiations.
“I think we are building, step by step, confidence and creating the conditions to do concrete things to the benefit of the Cypriot people,” the secretary-general said.
The agreed-upon, UN-endorsed framework for a peace deal has been a reunified Cyprus as a federation composed of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot zones.
Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar has been demanding a two-state deal ever since his 2020 election. He faces re-election in October and says he’s running on the same two-state platform with Ankara’s full backing.
Greek Cypriots reject any agreement that would formalise partition, fearing Turkiye would seek to control the entire island in light of its demand to maintain a permanent troop presence and military intervention rights in Cyprus.
Turkiye also insists that the minority Turkish Cypriots should have veto rights over all federal government decisions.
The meeting included the foreign ministers of guarantor countries Turkiye and Greece, and a United Kingdom deputy minister.
Despite differences on the future of Cyprus, the rivals have made some progress on trust-building measures.
Achievements
Guterres told reporters that four initiatives had been achieved: Creating a technical committee on youth; initiatives on the environment and climate change, including the effect on mining areas; the restoration of cemeteries; and an agreement on demining, where technical details still need to be finalised.
He said discussions will continue on opening four new crossings between the Greek and Turkish sides of the island, and on solar energy in the buffer zone between them, which is patrolled by a UN peacekeeping force.
Tatar accused Nikos Christodoulides, the president of Cyprus, of preventing the announcement of the four border crossings on Thursday by insisting that one of them go through the buffer zone, which he called unacceptable to Turkish Cypriots.
He also sharply criticised Greek Cypriots for pursuing legal action over the sale of properties in the Turkish Cypriot north, saying the moves “are certainly damaging to the relations of the two peoples and are aimed at damaging our economy and our tourism”.
Property rights are a deeply contentious issue in Cyprus. A recent boom in the construction of luxury villas and apartments in the north has prompted Cypriot legal authorities to take a more assertive stance towards realtors and developers, to discourage what they say is the large-scale “illegal usurpation” of Greek Cypriot land.
The secretary-general said Tatar and Christodoulides agreed to meet with him in late September, during the annual gathering of world leaders at the General Assembly, and to hold another informal meeting later in the year.