António Guterres, the United Nations Secretary-General, will travel to Cyprus from July 27 to 29, in a visit widely regarded as an attempt to stop the latest diplomatic push from grinding to a halt rather than any indication that reunification talks are making headway.
The trip, confirmed earlier this week, comes as the UN continues to weigh up whether conditions are ripe for a fresh informal multilateral meeting on the island’s future. Mr Guterres is expected to use the visit to judge for himself whether both sides possess the political will needed to warrant another attempt at negotiations.
Konstantinos Letymbiotis, the Cypriot government spokesman, described the visit as significant, pointing out that it will be the first by a UN Secretary-General in 16 years. He said its purpose was to establish whether an informal conference could be convened, but was careful to stress that the trip was not merely symbolic and should not be read as evidence of any agreed momentum.
At the UN Security Council, Hasim Diann, standing in for the UN envoy Colin Stewart, briefed members on Mr Guterres’s latest reports and on the work of his personal envoy, María Ángela Holguín, who has been engaged in intensive contacts with both communities to establish whether the ground exists for resuming talks. Diplomats made clear that the UN was not yet in a position to speak of an agreed process, still less a negotiating framework ready to be put in place.
The United States, France, Greece, Denmark and Latvia used the session to restate their backing for a settlement founded on a bizonal, bicommunal federation with political equality between the two communities. Pakistan and Somalia, by contrast, drew attention to the economic disparities and isolation faced by Turkish Cypriots, underlining the divisions of opinion that persist within the Council.
Nicosia insists that an informal meeting before the end of the summer remains achievable — but only if Turkey adopts a more constructive approach and abandons its insistence on a two-state solution.
