UN security council to deliberate Cyprus reports next month

The United Nations security council will deliberate the next reports on the state of the UN’s peacekeeping force in Cyprus (Unficyp) and its good offices on the island to be submitted by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on July 16, according to reports on Thursday. The Cyprus News Agency reported that both reports are expected to be submitted “early next month” before a behind-closed-doors security council session will be held to deliberate them on July 16. When Unficyp’s rolling one-year mandate was renewed in January, the security council had requested that Guterres’ next reports be submitted by July 6, and that they focus “in particular on progress towards reaching a consensus starting point for meaningful results-oriented negotiations leading to a settlement”. In advance next month’s meeting, Unficyp chief Khassim Diagne is expected to brief members of the security council regarding the latest developments on the island. Related Articles • Loose ends and tight lips all round on Cyprus talks • Turkish Cypriots’ will for a solution ‘clear’, Erhurman says • Enlarged meeting ‘not an end in itself’, Letymbiotis says • Reported new Cyprus problem plan ‘neither necessary nor appropriate’ • Erhurman: No lack of understanding with Turkey Guterres’ most recent reports were submitted in January, and he wrote at the time that “the intensification of dialogue and the engagement of the United Nations” with the island’s two sides and its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom “continued” in the second half of last year. He also made reference to the election of Tufan Erhurman as Turkish Cypriot leader last October, writing that Erhurman won the election “with a large majority”, having “campaigned on a platform of overcoming political and social divisions within the Turkish Cypriot community and returning to talks on the basis of a federal solution”. Almost six months on, efforts are underway as part of what has been described as a “new initiative” being undertaken with the UN with the aim of bringing about a resumption of formal negotiations. In line with this, UN envoy Maria Angela Holguin visited the island earlier this month, meeting both Erhurman and President Nikos Christodoulides twice, before travelling to both Ankara and Athens to meet Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis. She is now in New York and is expected to discuss progress in Cyprus with Guterres in the coming days, likely after Guterres himself returns to New York from London. Following those talks, she will return to Europe, meeting European Council President Antonio Costa and possibly other notable figures in Brussels, before travelling to Cyprus again for more meetings with Christodoulides and Erhurman. In advance of Holguin’s return, both leaders have heightened their own preparations on the island, with Christodoulides convening the National Council on Monday and Erhurman both convening a meeting of Turkish Cypriot political parties and holding one-on-one meetings with three of his living predecessors. Following the National Council meeting, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis stressed that “in no case could the convening of an enlarged meeting simply for the sake of it ever be an end in itself”. “The objective of convening an informal enlarged meeting is for it to constitute the springboard for the resumption of negotiations, and there cannot be any other objective,” he said. These comments largely echo those made by Erhurman, who shortly afterwards said that “all sides know that our intention is not to negotiate for the sake of negotiating, but to negotiate for a solution”. “We will not enter into an open-ended process which will not yield results and will ultimately take us back to square one,” he added. It is currently believed that an enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem, involving the island’s two sides, its three guarantor powers, and the UN, may convened either towards the end of next month or at the beginning of August.