The Cyprus problem poised to outlive another UN chief

But Guterres issues stark warning ahead of hoped-for 5+1 meetingThe UN Secretary-General (UNSG) Antonio Guterres paid a historic visit to Cyprus last week and promised to convene a 5+1 meeting. To achieve results he asked the parties to prepare adequately and address three issues: confidence building measures (CBMs), methodology and crucial issues of substance sufficient to generate a favourable political momentum. A 5+1 meeting is numerical code for the Cypriot leaders, the three guarantor powers plus the UN, and the adequacy of the preparatory work will be assessed by the UNSG’s personal envoy Maria Angela Holguin, who will then recommend to the UNSG whether a date should be fixed for a Cyprus peace conference. Guterres explained that “the United Nations cannot impose peace,” although he was able to warn the people of Cyprus and their leaders that the current state of affairs on the island is unsustainable in the short term that is getting shorter with every crisis in the region. He said that “this was a crucial moment for the island and the wider region,” owing to “important geopolitical movements and persistent and unending conflicts in a region where we have seen how conflicts can be enlarged”, adding ominously that “a solution in Cyprus is absolutely crucial not only to preserve the interests and the peace of the Cypriot people, but also as a factor of stability in what is becoming a dangerously unstable region.” Missiles and drones are crisscrossing the skies all round Cyprus and control of events is slipping away, and unless Cyprus sorts its problem out it will be swallowed up in the power games of countries that have jettisoned the prohibition of the use of force and the rules-based order. Antonio Guterres stressed that all efforts must be made to rebuild trust between the two communities and emphasised the need to respect the authority of the UN peacekeeping operation Unficyp in the buffer zone and UN-delineated ceasefire line. Ms Holguin will in due course report and make her recommendation about the adequacy of preparation, and it will probably be the new UNSG who will call a 5+1 if the preparatory work has created compromise friendly politics across the divide. What happened at Crans-Montana in 2017 was that the political atmosphere was not compromise friendly. Whether it would be different this time remains to be seen, but it is certainly what the UNSG had in mind when he euphemistically asked the leaders to prepare adequately for a 5+1. Guterres’ term as UNSG ends in December, and it is unlikely that he will convene and chair the 5+1 meeting himself. His own involvement is not required since the good offices of the UNSG, including the services of Ms Holguin, are not personal and will be continued by the new UNSG. The selection of a new UNSG is well under way. The appointment is by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on a recommendation by at least nine affirmative votes of the 15 members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) – without a veto from any of the five permanent members’ votes. That’s all the UN Charter says about the selection of a new UNSG, but practice and precedent have evolved a number of informal rules including that UNSG rotates regionally to ensure worldwide acceptance, and the UN secretary-general cannot be a national of any of the permanent members of the UNSC. It is unusual for the UNSG not to be re-elected for a second term although the US broke ranks and vetoed the reelection of Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1996, the Egyptian Copt UNSG, who was very independent and refused to suppress a report critical of an Israeli military attack in southern Lebanon in which 106 Lebanese civilians were killed in the same year. It so infuriated US president Bill Clinton who quipped that he wanted someone “who was more secretary and less general”. The way the election works is that member states nominate candidates who then pitch their case for appointment to the UNGA in an open debate format, and to the UNSC in closed sessions until a candidate emerges who receives nine affirmative votes and has not been vetoed by any of the five permanent members. Political pressure has been building up on member states to nominate female candidates this time, as it was embarrassing that all nine secretaries-general since the start of the UN in 1945 have been men. Both the president of the Security Council and the president of the General Assembly sent letters to member states urging them to nominate female candidates. US President Donald Trump has informally suggested FIFA president Gianni Infantino and may be keeping the US’ right to nominate a candidate in reserve pending a possible deadlock. The two women frontrunners after a straw poll of the UNSC in July are Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan, secretary-general of the UN Trade and Development and former vice president of her country and Guyana’s Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett who is its ambassador at the UN and a former foreign minister. The only man in with a chance is Rafael Grossi from Argentina who is probably the best qualified. He is the nuclear non-proliferation supremo as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Both the major crises in Ukraine and Iran are concerned with the problems of containing civilian nuclear power. But the most interesting for Cypriots is Rebeca Grynspan. Her parents Manuel and Sara were Polish Jewish refugees who escaped the Holocaust and ended up in Cyprus en route to Israel, both of which were under British control. They met and fell in love and married while in a British internment camp in Cyprus between 1946-49 and after their release they sailed to Costa Rica and Rebeca was born there in 1955. For Cypriots the appointment of Rebeca Grynspan would be very welcome for reasons more poetic than diplomatic – perhaps a poetic leap of faith is exactly what Cyprus needs to stay secure in a dangerous region in turbulent times. Alper Ali Riza is a king’s counsel in the UK and a former part time judge