UN envoy María Ángela Holguín’s visit to Cyprus could still produce a positive result, provided there is genuine political will from the other side, Government Spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis said on Friday.
He was speaking to reporters after President Nikos Christodoulides met Holguín, the UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy, at the Presidential Palace. She had arrived on the island late on Thursday.
“If there is the obvious, if there is the precondition, genuine political will from the other side… of course there can be progress,” Letymbiotis said.
He said the two had reviewed Christodoulides’s regular meetings with Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman. According to the president, the most recent of these took place in a very positive and constructive atmosphere.
They also discussed the 19 proposals Christodoulides has submitted, and how the two leaders could take them forward on confidence-building measures as well as on substance and methodology. The aim, Letymbiotis said, was to help achieve UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s goal of a successful enlarged meeting on Cyprus within his term.
Ahead of a joint meeting already set for 9 November, Christodoulides told Holguín it would be useful to hold as many joint meetings as possible while she is on the island. Holguín is due to meet Erhurman on Monday and will brief him on her talks with the president.
The 19 proposals
Asked whether Christodoulides would present new ideas or put his 19 proposals in writing, Letymbiotis said some had been rejected at the leaders’ last meeting while others were still being discussed. The aim was to discuss them in substance.
He said the proposals were entirely clear. He pointed in particular to the one the president has already made public on the fenced-off area of Varosha together with Famagusta port.
“If we want to discuss them in substance… we can do it,” he said.
On whether Holguín had brought anything new, for example on recording the convergences reached in past talks and handing them to the parties, Letymbiotis said the government’s position had not changed. That position has been conveyed through its negotiator and the president. Recording the convergences, he said, would help talks resume from where they left off.
Role of the envoy
Asked whether Christodoulides had raised reservations about Holguín’s role following her 17 October interview, Letymbiotis said: “It is not a question of reservations.”
He said the issue was the added value of the UN’s presence, under whose auspices the leaders’ regular meetings take place, and the value of having the Secretary-General’s envoy herself present. That was why the president had argued for as many joint meetings in her presence as possible.
Letymbiotis confirmed that Christodoulides had passed on requests from occupied municipalities, including the Famagusta mayor, and other organised groups to meet Holguín as part of her contacts with civil society. It was for Holguín and her office to decide, he said.
Turkey and the Organisation of Turkic States
Asked about remarks made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday and Ankara’s renewed efforts to upgrade the occupation regime’s status in the Organisation of Turkic States, Letymbiotis said such attempts could not override international law.
He said Security Council resolutions and the international community had consistently recognised the Republic of Cyprus as the only internationally recognised state. Turkey’s actions did not help create the climate Guterres was seeking, he added. Its wider conduct in the region, which he said disregarded international law and the Law of the Sea, did not help either.
Asked whether Turkey’s moves were poisoning the climate on the Cyprus problem, he said: “I don’t know if they ‘poison’ it, they certainly do not contribute positively.”
He said Cyprus’s Permanent Mission in New York had clearly conveyed its concerns to the UN Secretariat through démarches, as it does in all such cases.
