Turkish Cypriot President Tufan Erhürman (IHA Photo)
Turkish Cypriot President Tufan Erhürman said on Sept. 22 that any new round of negotiations on the Cyprus dispute should be aimed at achieving a settlement rather than simply restarting talks, ahead of meetings with senior U.N. officials in New York.
Erhürman is scheduled to travel to New York on Sept. 23 to meet separately with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his Personal Envoy for Cyprus, Maria Angela Holguin.
The meetings are expected to address efforts to revive negotiations on the decades-old division of the island.
“We do not believe in holding a 5+1 meeting simply for the sake of holding one, nor negotiations simply for the sake of negotiations,” Erhürman said.
He stressed that the Turkish Cypriot side wants a 5+1 meeting to be preceded by progress in Nicosia that would improve its chances of producing concrete results, adding that any renewed negotiations
should ultimately lead to a settlement in line with the Turkish Cypriot community’s desire for a solution.
The 5+1 format includes the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot sides, the three guarantor countries, Türkiye, Greece and Britain, and the United Nations.
Erhürman said progress should first be made in three areas highlighted by Guterres: Confidence-building measures, the methodology of negotiations and substantive issues.
Measures currently under consideration include opening additional crossing points between the two sides, carrying out demining efforts, cooperating on disaster response and irregular migration, and creating joint mechanisms involving sports and civil society.
