The UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for Cyprus, Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar, arrives in Cyprus on Sunday evening, according to the UN in Cyprus.
This is Holguin’s first visit to the island since the announcement of her mandate in early January.
According to UN Secretary General’s Spokesperson at the UN Headquarters, Stephane Dujarric, on 30 January, Holguin will meet separately with the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Nikos Christodoulides and Ersin Tatar respectively.
It is expected that during her stay, she will also engage with a wide range of interlocutors, from local actors to civil society, including women and youth groups.
With the arrival in Cyprus of the Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary General, the Cyprus government has noted that a period of mobility on the Cyprus problem is beginning, in which the Government is entering with sincere political will, Government Spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis had said.
“We are entering a new period, a period of mobility in the Cyprus issu
e which is what we sought from the very beginning.’ He noted that Holguin is to have a meeting with President, Nikos Christodoulides, on Tuesday, January 30.
‘It is an important development’, the Spokesperson said, noting that, ‘we enter this new period, with sincere political will, to catalytically contribute to creating the conditions for the resumption of negotiations from the point where they were interrupted, in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council’.
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 María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar of Columbia 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 Age
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