Press Releases

The UN Secretary-General, Mr António Guterres, yesterday, (28/1/2021) gave a press conference at UN Headquarters. During the press conference, the Secretary-General replied to a press question on Cyprus, as follows:

Anadolu: Thank you Mr. Secretary-General. Following your phone conversation with the Turkish Cypriot leader a few days ago and your recent report to the Security Council and your intention to bring the two parties together, when and where are you planning to convene a meeting among those two leaders?

And a follow up on the same issue, newly elected Turkish Cypriot leader says that I quote “We deserve our own state.” Is the UN open to new ideas or you still support a federally unified Cyprus? Thank you.

Secretary-General: Well, first of all, it is my intention to convene early March a meeting of the 5+1, which means United Nations together with the two communities in Cyprus and together with the guarantors - means Turkey, Greece, and United Kingdom.

And that meeting, we decided it will be an informal meeting without preconditions to allow for the parties, and there is this change, as know, in the administration of “northern Cyprus,” so it is important that there is a chance for people to, frankly, discuss among themselves how they see the future and how they see things moving forward.

Now, I have a mandate for the Security Council for UN involvement in relation to the negotiations, and that mandate refers explicitly the bi-zonal, bi-community solution, as you know.

Obviously, this does not... is not an impediment, for in the meeting that we are convening every... of the interlocutors to present the positions that they will present. And I am always ready to go to the Security Council and, if there is an agreement of the parties in enlarging the scope of negotiations, to be the interpreter to have a common agreement in this regard.

But as I said, the first step is to bring them together, to listen to them, and to see the result of that discussion. And the fact that I stick to the mandate I received doesn't mean that I'm not open to listen to everybody and to take the conclusions of that discussion, based on whatever the parties can come to a common view about the future.

EH/ECHR