The informal meeting, under the auspices of Guterres, includes representatives from the Turkish and Greek Cypriot sides, as well as the guarantor states: Turkey, Greece, and the United Kingdom.
The dinner, hosted by Guterres at a hotel, was attended by Ersin Tatar, President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus; Hakan Fidan, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey; and Nikos Christodoulides, leader of the Greek Cypriot administration.
In addition, Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Geragos, British Minister of State for Europe and North America Stephen Doughty, and their accompanying delegations were also present.
The meeting is scheduled to continue on Tuesday to exchange views on determining a path forward on the Cyprus issue.
Guterres is expected to meet with the delegations separately on Tuesday morning, the second day of the talks, while the expanded meeting, with the participation of all parties, is scheduled to begin at noon the same day and conclude in the evening. The lack of common ground between the parties in Cyprus is an obstacle to moving towards a formal negotiation process in the Cyprus talks.
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The Turkish Cypriot side, especially with the election of Ersin Tatar as President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in October 2020, advocates a “solution based on sovereign equality and cooperation between two states in Cyprus.”
In this context, the Turkish Cypriot side emphasizes the need for the international community to recognize the sovereign equality and equal international status of Turkish Cypriots in order to begin formal negotiations that would pave the way for a just, lasting, and sustainable solution on the island.
On the other hand, Greek Cypriot officials affirm their insistence on supporting the bicommunal federal model, which has been negotiated for many years and has yet to yield results.
This position of the Greek Cypriot side, which has previously rejected this solution model at the negotiating table on numerous occasions despite the goodwill and positive approach of the Turkish Cypriot side, is subject to severe criticism.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, with the Turkish north and the Greek Cypriot south divided. In 2004, the Greek Cypriots rejected a UN-sponsored plan to unify the two parts of the island. Since the collapse of UN-sponsored reunification talks in Switzerland in July 2017, no official UN-mediated negotiations have taken place to resolve the conflict on the island.
