UNSG personal envoy, Maria Angela Holguin will hold a second meeting on Monday, 13 May with Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides at the Presidential Palace.
Monday’s meeting will be held at 1030.
In her statements during last week’s meeting, Holguin said, inter alia, it is the responsibility of the two leaders to listen to what people want as regards moving forward.
She noted that they had ‘a very constructive meeting’ and that her impression, after meeting with civil society groups and the private sector, was that ‘everybody wants to move forward’ and for something to happen in the island.
Government Spokesperson, Konstantinos Letymbiotis, in his own statements after the previous meeting the President had with Holguin, expressed the Government’s hope that the resumption of negotiations would be possible ‘in the immediate future’.
Asked if the personal envoy briefed the President about Turkey’s reaction, the Spokesperson said that the results of her contacts had been discussed. ‘What matters right now
is to let diplomacy do its job’, he said.
Asked if there was an indication that the Turkish side agrees with the renewal of Holguin’s mandate, Letymbiotis said that the terms of the mandate of the personal envoy derive from the resolutions of the UN Security Council, and that there were no time limitations.
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. The latest round of negotiations, in July 2017 at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana ended inconclusively. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres appointed Holguín in January as his personal envoy for Cyprus, to assume a Good Offices role on his behalf and search for common ground on the way forward in the Cyprus issue.
Source: Cyprus News Agency
