New york: President of the Republic of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides will hold on Saturday a trilateral meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Ant³nio Guterres and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, in New York.
According to Cyprus News Agency, the meeting, convened by Guterres following the Multilateral Conference in New York last July, is part of the UN’s efforts to restart negotiations on the Cyprus issue.
After Thursday’s tete-a-tete meeting with the Secretary-General, President Christodoulides said that Guterres ‘is committed to the effort to resume the talks.’ He noted that the realistic objective of today’s meeting is to review the state of play and determine the timing of the next meeting after the elections in the Turkish-occupied areas on 19 October. He further estimated that by November an expanded meeting will take place with the aim of resuming negotiations from where they left off in Crans-Montana, based on the agreed framework.
The Greek Cypriot side, as noted in Nicosia, approaches the meeting prepared for every eventuality. President Christodoulides, who arrived in New York last Saturday, has also addressed the General Assembly plenary, while following today’s meeting with the UN Secretary-General and Tatar he will depart for Cyprus.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third. Repeated rounds of UN-led peace talks have so far failed to yield results due to Turkish intransigence. The latest round of negotiations, in July 2017 at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana ended inconclusively.
Aiming to restart negotiations on the long-standing Cyprus issue, an informal meeting in a broader format was held in New York on July 16-17, 2025, following an initial round in Geneva last March. The two sides in Cyprus continue discussions on outstanding issues, including the opening of crossing points and a solar energy installation in the buffer zone. They also agreed to cooperate on a number of issues, including the exchange of cultural artifacts, while Maria Angela Holgun, the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy on Cyprus, will continue her efforts.