UN’s Stewart to meet leaders ahead of briefing Security Council

UN Special Representative on Cyprus Colin Stewart will be meeting with both President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar ahead of departing for New York to inform the Security Council ahead of the peacekeeping force (Unficyp) mandate renewal.

According to reports on Wednesday, the UN said that Stewart will meet the two leaders separately.

Sources told the Cyprus News Agency that Stewart would meet Tatar on Wednesday, while he would meet with Christodoulides on Thursday.

After the meeting, he will head to New York, where he will brief the security council, and meet with the new United Nations Secretary-General envoy on Cyprus Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar, when her appointment to the post is officially announced.

Nicosia was on Tuesday waiting for the UN to formally announce the appointment of a new envoy to Cyprus.

Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis told the Cyprus News Agency that the appointment is “imminent” with news expected soon or even within the day.

Both sides on the island have approved the appointment of Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar as the UN envoy to Cyprus.

The appointment of Cuellar is expected to be officially announced in the coming days, the UN said later in the day.

Answering a question by the Cyprus News Agency to the office of the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, spokeswoman Dionne Hutchinson stated that the envoy will be officially announced as soon as the “green light” is given.

Hutchinson noted that there will be no official announcement on Tuesday. “It will not be announced today, as soon as we have the green light we will announce it,” she said.