The United Nations will a host a meeting between rival Cypriot leaders next week to try and move closer to resuming Cyprus reunification talks that crashed 15 months ago.
The Cyprus government announced Friday that the United Nations will host the meeting on October 26 between Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci inside the UN compound in Nicosia’s buffer zone.
The meeting – to reignite momentum in stalled talks – will be hosted by Elizabeth Spehar, head of the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a recent report to the Security Council that a peace deal to reunify Cyprus was still alive despite the collapse of talks at an UN-backed Swiss summit in July 2017.
There have been no official Cyprus negotiations between the two sides since then.
The United Nations has made clear it will not fully engage in a new peace process unless Cypriot leaders are committed into entering negotiations in a spirit of compromise.
The last talks aimed at reunifying the island as a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation collapsed in Switzerland last year after the UN chief failed to get the parties to agree on a post-settlement security arrangement for Cyprus.
It was the first time Cyprus talks involved the guarantor powers of Britain, Greece and Turkey.
Under the island’s 1960 treaty of independence, the three countries secured intervention rights to safeguard the island’s sovereignty, but the Greek Cypriots want these scrapped while the Turkish Cypriots are reluctant to do so.
The other stumbling block is that Anastasiades wants all Turkish troops to leave the island after a solution is reached while Akinci is opposed to this idea.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern third in response to a coup sponsored by the military junta then ruling Greece.
Tensions in the region heightened after Nicosia stepped up its search for natural gas reserves, a move opposed by Turkey.
The EU — of which Cyprus is a member state while Turkey is not — condemned Turkey’s actions in the eastern Mediterranean in trying to block oil and gas exploration in Cyprus’ maritime zone.
