UN to host key Cyprus summit in Geneva
ANKARA
Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar and his Greek Cypriot counterpart, Nikos Hristodulidis, will convene for an informal meeting hosted by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Geneva, with participation from the three guarantor countries: Türkiye, Greece, and the United Kingdom.
The two-day meeting will kick off on March 17.
Türkiye and Greece will be represented by their foreign ministers, Hakan Fidan and Yorgo Gerapetritis, respectively, and the U.K. by Minister of State for Europe and North America Stephen Doughty.
According to Turkish diplomatic sources, the meeting will focus on exchanging views on the Cyprus question in the forthcoming period.
“In this respect, the meeting does not constitute a ‘continuation of past negotiation processes’ or a ‘beginning of a new negotiation process’ in any way,” the sources underlined.
Turkish Cypriot President Tatar was in Ankara last week and held meetings with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to discuss the Geneva meeting.
Türkiye and the Turkish Cyprus recall that Greek Cyprus has twice rejected U.N.-led plans to create a new state and administration on the island in 2004 and 2017, respectively. They underline that there is a new reality on the island where two different nations live in two different states and a solution should be based on this.
Tatar declared in 2021 that they will no longer negotiate for the establishment of a federal state with Greek Cyprus, recalling that attempts to resolve the problem on the basis of U.N. parameters have not yielded results.
Tatar underlined that there are two different people and two different states on the island. He also stressed the need for the recognition of the rights of Turkish Cypriots, including sovereign equality and equal international status.
The decision to hold an expanded meeting was given during Guterres’ informal dinner with Tatar and Hristodulidis in New York in October 2024.
The divided island of Cyprus has been mired in a decades-long dispute between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, despite numerous diplomatic efforts by the U.N. to achieve a comprehensive settlement.
Ethnic attacks starting in the early 1960s forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety.
In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at Greece’s annexation of the island led to Türkiye’s military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence. As a result, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was founded in 1983.
The Greek Cypriot Administration entered the EU in 2004, the same year Greek Cypriots single-handedly blocked a U.N. plan to end the longstanding dispute.
