UN chief hosts peace talks with rival Cypriot leaders

UNITED NATIONS – U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has announced that the rival leaders of ethnically divided Cyprus have agreed on new talks in Geneva this month, a significant step forward that could see the final round of negotiations on a peace agreement to reunify the Mediterranean island.

Guterres hosted a working dinner Sunday evening with the island’s Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, hoping to break an impasse in talks.

Two years of negotiations have made significant strides, but a dispute over how a final summit aiming for a reunification deal should proceed brought talks to a standstill late last month. The main obstacle is the future of around 35,000 Turkish soldiers on the island.

Cyprus was split into a Greek Cypriot south and a Turkish Cypriot north in 1974 when Turkey invaded after a coup by Cypriot supporters of uniting the island with Greece. Turkish Cypriots declared an independent state in 1983, but only Turkey recognizes it and still maintains troops there.

While the island joined the European Union in 2004, only the internationally recognized Greek-speaking south enjoys full membership benefits.

Anastasiades insists on first dealing with the issue of the withdrawal of Turkish troops that Greek Cypriots consider a threat. He has proposed that an international police force oversee post-reunification security, but the minority Turkish Cypriots see Turkish troops and military intervention rights accorded to Ankara as their only protection.

Just after entering U.N. headquarters, Turkish Cypriot leader Akinci told reporters, “The reason why we are here is the impasse created by one side’s insistence on putting forward preconditions.”

“What we need from now on is political will and determination more than ever – and more than time,” he said.

Akinci said if both sides stay within principles agreed on in February 2014 and parameters in a Jan. 12 joint declaration at the first Geneva conference on Cyprus “then the way forward can be opened and we are hear for that.”

What are the chances? “We will see now,” he said.

Anastasiades, the Greek Cypriot president, told reporters he came to the U.N. “for a constructive dialogue in order to see how we are moving forward.”

“I’m not here for a blame game,” he said. “I’m always in line with what we have agreed, and I do expect that today we can pave the way for a constructive dialogue in order to reach not just a progress but a settlement.”

Espen Barth Eide, the U.N.’s special adviser on Cyprus who also attended the dinner, called off mediation efforts May 26 following the disagreement between Anastasiades and Akinci on how the talks should proceed.

Eide said three days later that despite the breakdown “we are indeed very, very close – actually more close than most people seem to understand” to an agreement to reunite Cyprus.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Guterres invited the two leaders to New York to discuss the talks “and the way forward.”