“Small steps” at the Geneva talks on Cyprus

April 2025 With all sides talking about a “first step” and Ankara maintaining its unacceptable demands for the legalization of the occupation, the informal conference in Geneva on the Cyprus issue has concluded. The participants were UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the British Secretary of State for Europe, the Foreign Ministers of Greece and Turkey, the Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar and the President of the Republic of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides. The conference decided to appoint a special envoy (to be Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar) and a new meeting of the five-party group at the end of July. The opening of four checkpoints, the establishment of a Youth Committee and a Climate Change Committee, the reconstruction of cemeteries, and the installation of photovoltaic panels in the Dead Zone were also agreed upon. In his statements after the meeting, the UN Secretary-General described the talks as “constructive” and added that both sides are showing “a commitment to progress”. The Cypriot President, N. Christodoulides, expressed his satisfaction, stating that “a first important positive step has been taken towards the resumption of talks”. “This is the main aim, we are not there yet, but since 2017 a first important step has been taken”, he said. At the same time, all sides admit that the new attempt to “restart” the talks will start from the “acquis” of the Crans Montana talks on “two constituent federal states”. “The expanded meeting in Geneva is a development that we should try, as far as it is in our power, to turn into an opportunity to achieve a solution to the Cyprus problem”, said AKEL General Secretary Stefanos Stefanou, emphasizing the need to seek a solution on the basis of a bizonal, bicommunal federation with political equality. A final agreement for the solution to the Cyprus problem, if we finally get there, will depend on whether the new federal structure will guarantee the independence, territorial integrity and the single entity of the new demilitarized federal nation, without occupation armies, without guarantor powers and foreign dependencies.

Greek Tribune Adelaide, South Australia