President sends fresh plea to Guterres over special envoy

President Nicos Anastasiades has sent another letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reporting Turkey’s latest illegal actions in and around Cyprus but also calling for the immediate appointment of a special envoy to give a push to the settlement talks process, it was announced on Saturday.

According to government spokesman Marios Pelekanos, the president sent the letter on Thursday, reporting Turkey’s latest “unilateral and illegal actions” in the Republic’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the fenced area of Famagusta and Karpasia.

Anastasiades, according to Pelekanos, also called on the secretary-general “to engage more actively with the immediate appointment of a special envoy, in order to create the necessary conditions for a resumption of a substantive dialogue to find a solution on the basis of United Nations Security Council resolutions and decisions”.

“At the same time, he reiterated to the secretary-general his determination and political will to work with the United Nations and the Turkish Cypriot leadership to achieve these objectives,” he added.

There has been no news since the announcement late last month, after Anastasiades’ meeting with Guterres and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar in New York, that the secretary-general would most probably appoint a special envoy to help find a way forward on the Cyprus problem.

The Turkish Cypriot side, however, has been stating since that they would not agree to a special envoy whose mandate would be “limited”, they said, because they would have to move within the UN resolutions, meaning a federal solution to the Cyprus problem.

Insisting on their position that the way to go is two sovereign states on the island, the Turkish Cypriot side said Guterres must instead appoint a ‘personal’ envoy to help the sides find common ground.

In the meantime, recent reports in the north said that the Tatar has given the Turkish military Greek Cypriot land in the area of Cape Apostolos Andreas for the creation of a naval base. Anastasiades has already briefed his EU counterparts of this move, earlier in the week at the European Council.