Holguin to submit Cyprus report to Guterres

United Nations envoy Maria Angela Holguin is on Wednesday expected to submit her report on Cyprus to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, as her tenure as envoy comes to an end.

Her report is to centre on the prospect of a resumption of talks to solve the Cyprus problem and whether or not there is sufficient common ground between the island’s two sides and their two leaders to do so.

Once the report has been submitted, Guterres will decide on his and the UN’s next steps regarding the Cyprus problem.

Holguin’s report comes days after she penned an open letter on the matter, urging stakeholders in Cyprus to “think differently” to find a solution to the Cyprus problem.

She said her time as envoy has “focused on a constant search for paths that lead to generating trust between the parties”, and that it is now “important to move away from solutions that in the past have created expectations that were not met and led to greater disagreements and frustrations”.

“Now, we must think differently, remaining convinced that a common future would bring great opportunities to all Cypriots,” she said.

“The status quo has created greater distance and lack of knowledge of the other, and this grows with each passing day. As a mechanism to avoid further frustration, without a doubt linked to the failed negotiation attempts, many people seem to have surrendered to the impossibility of changing the current situation,” she added.

She insisted in the letter that her commitment will not be “over” upon the submission of her report, and that she will “continue to think on options for a lasting solution”.

Meanwhile, many of the major external players in relation to the Cyprus problem will converge in the United States’ capital Washington DC on Wednesday, with a Nato summit set to be held.

The heads of government of all three of Cyprus’ guarantor powers, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, will all be in attendance, alongside heads of state from all other Nato members and dignitaries from other countries and international organisations.

The summit’s focus points will be the ongoing war in Ukraine and transatlantic security.

At the same time, the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) on Wednesday morning quoted diplomatic sources as having said that the Turkish delegation made a “sudden request” for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit.

As a result, Mitsotakis will meet Erdogan at 4pm Washington time (11pm Cyprus time).

Greek newspaper Kathimerini on Wednesday that the meeting will neither be long, nor “all-encompassing”, but that it will focus on reviewing recent progress in relations between Greece and Turkey.

Mitsotakis was keen to play down the meeting’s importance, telling reporters, “my meeting with Erdogan should not be news”.

In addition to his meeting with Erdogan, Mitsotakis will also meet with Antonio Guterres in New York on Friday to discuss Greece’s accession to the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member next year, as well as the Cyprus problem.

Two other notable attendees in Washington DC, as far as Cyprus is concerned, are Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Both Bayramov and Orban were present at last weekend’s Organisation of Turkic States (OTS) meeting in Azerbaijan, with both sitting down for meals with their respective ‘counterparts’ from the north, ‘foreign minister’ Tahsin Ertugruloglu and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar.

Azerbaijan has long been flirting with the idea of recognising the north, with the country’s President Ilham Aliyev having made multiple statements referring to Tatar as the “TRNC President” and the north as the “TRNC”.

Orban’s presence at the summit, as the head of government of a European Union member state, drew the ire of the EU, with with the bloc’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell issuing a scathing statement on Sunday.

“Hungary has not received any mandate from the European Council to advance relations with the OTS. The EU rejects the attempts by the OTS to legitimise the Turkish Cypriot secessionist entity,” he said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel will also be in Washington DC for the Nato summit, marking the first time the EU’s top brass will have been in the same room as Orban since the OTS summit took place.