In a significant diplomatic development, the leaders of the island’s Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities convened with a senior United Nations envoy on Thursday, marking the first such tripartite encounter in six years. The meeting, held at the symbolic buffer zone location of the old Nicosia airport, aimed to explore pathways to resuscitate long-stalled negotiations aimed at reunifying Cyprus.
President Nikos Christodoulides of the Republic of Cyprus and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman engaged in discussions facilitated by María Angela Holguín Cuéllar, the Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General. The protracted dialogue, lasting nearly three and a half hours, represents the most substantive high-level contact since the collapse of the Crans-Montana peace conference in 2017. The island has remained partitioned since 1974, with a UN-patrolled buffer zone separating the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot south from the Turkish Cypriot north.
Prior to the formal talks, the two leaders undertook a joint visit to the anthropological laboratory of the Committee on Missing Persons, a poignant gesture underscoring the human dimension of the decades-old conflict. This set a tone for a meeting that, according to a subsequent UN readout, yielded a consensus on pursuing a settlement founded on a bizonal, bicommunal federation with political equality, in line with longstanding UN Security Council parameters. Both parties affirmed that the objective remains a comprehensive resolution, not merely interim measures.
Crucially, the leaders committed to accelerating a slate of specific confidence-building measures (CBMs) designed to foster intercommunal trust. These practical initiatives include addressing the enduring tragedy of missing persons, advancing the contentious *Halloumi/Hellim* cheese geographical indication dossier, and facilitating the construction of water pipelines. They further agreed to augment staffing at existing crossing points and noted progress on road infrastructure at a key checkpoint. However, a proposal by President Christodoulides to inaugurate a new pedestrian crossing point in Nicosia was not accepted by Mr. Erhurman, highlighting persistent divergences.
The UN envoy’s role appears pivotal in maintaining momentum. Holguín is scheduled to immediately continue her regional consultations, with stops in Athens and Ankara to engage with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis, as well as Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. This diplomatic shuttle is seen as preparatory work for a more expansive informal meeting that would include the three guarantor powers—Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom—alongside the two Cypriot sides.
While cautiously optimistic in his remarks, President Christodoulides indicated a readiness to table specific proposals, stating he is prepared for "substantive discussion towards the resumption of talks from where they stopped at Crans-Montana." The UN, meanwhile, explicitly noted that the agreed CBMs "are not a substitute to achieving a solution to the Cyprus problem," a clear reminder of the formidable challenges ahead. The leaders pledged to reconvene as necessary, instructing their teams to maintain regular contact, thereby instituting a fragile but renewed framework for dialogue on one of the world’s most intractable political disputes.