Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhürman said in a post on Tuesday that he wants a 5+1 meeting with guaranteed results, as he prepares to travel to New York on Wednesday for talks with the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for Cyprus, María Ángela Holguín, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres. It will be his third meeting with Guterres in the 11 months he has led the Turkish Cypriot community, he said.
According to reports in the occupied north, Erhürman referred in his post to Guterres’s recent initiatives and remarks on the Cyprus problem, noting that the Secretary-General had expressed a wish, during his visit to Cyprus, to convene a new 5+1 meeting. Erhürman said he expected substantial progress on confidence-building measures (CBMs), on methodology and on issues of substance.
On the CBMs, Erhürman wrote that Guterres had proposed joint mechanisms covering border crossings, demining, disaster management and irregular migration, EU citizenship rights for children born to mixed marriages, and a joint committee on sport and civil society.
Erhürman said that in recent remarks, when asked about the prospect of a 5+1 meeting, Guterres had said there was still a lot of work to be done and that past mistakes should not be repeated.
Erhürman said that after so many fruitless experiences, he did not believe it was right to hold a 5+1 meeting merely for the sake of holding one, or negotiations for the sake of negotiations. “We want a 5+1 meeting whose results are guaranteed in advance by the meetings taking place in Nicosia,” he said, adding that he wanted negotiations that would lead to a solution this time, in line with what he described as the will of the Turkish Cypriot people for a solution.
Referring to remarks Guterres made after the collapse of the Crans-Montana talks, that this time must be different, Erhürman said the Secretary-General had repeated in his latest statements that “the mistakes of the past must not be repeated.”
Erhürman said he attached importance to progress on CBMs and methodology, a priority he said Guterres shared.
In conclusion, Erhürman wrote that he agreed with the Secretary-General’s approaches and that, as he had done so far, he would continue to support Guterres’s efforts within this framework for the rest of his term.
(information from CNA)
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