UN chief appoints new envoy to explore opportunities to revive Cyprus peace talks

Nicosia, Cyprus — UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday appointed a former Colombian foreign minister as his personal envoy to explore opportunities to revive talks to resolve Cyprus' ethnic divide, an issue that has challenged international diplomacy has braved for almost five decades.

María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar will work on behalf of Guterres to “find common ground on the way forward” and serve as adviser to the U.N. chief on Cyprus, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Cuéllar was Colombia's top diplomat from 2010 to 2018 and the country's representative to the UN from 2004 to 2006.

She is expected to travel to Cyprus soon to sound out Greek Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and the leader of the breakaway Turkish Cypriots, Ersin Tatar.

Cyprus was divided into ethnic Greek and Turkish parties in 1974, when Turkey invaded just days after a coup by supporters of a union with Greece. Only Turkey recognizes a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence and keeps some 40,000 troops in the breakaway north of the Mediterranean island nation.

A peace deal with Cyprus would reduce a source of potential conflict in the volatile Middle East and make it easier to exploit hydrocarbon deposits in the natural gas-rich waters of the eastern Mediterranean.

But Guterres' appointment of an envoy to brief him on whether it would be worth restarting the long-stalled peace talks reflects the numerous failed attempts to reach an agreement. If anything, the two parties have grown further apart since the last major step towards progress in the summer of 2017.

Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots say they have abandoned an agreed framework that called for the reunification of Cyprus as a state with Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot zones. Instead, they advocate what essentially amounts to a two-state treaty.

Turkish Cypriots claim that the majority of Greek Cypriots want to rule the entire island by refusing to share power equally. They also support Turkey's emphasis on maintaining military intervention rights and a permanent troop presence on the island as part of an agreement.

Greek Cypriots strongly oppose any deal that would formalize the island's ethnic divisions and reject Turkish Cypriot demands for a veto over all government decisions at the federal level. They also reject Turkey's provisions, arguing that a permanent presence of Turkish troops and the right to military intervention would undermine the country's sovereignty.

Before Cuellar's appointment, the two Cypriot parties appeared to have relaxed their hostile rhetoric, but tensions between them remain. In recent months there have been Greek Cypriot accusations of increased unauthorized Turkish Cypriot incursions into the UN-controlled buffer zone on the outskirts of Nicosia, the country's divided capital.

In his New Year's message, Christodoulides called the appointment of the envoy a “first important step” to revive peace talks. He said he was “absolutely ready” to move things forward, but acknowledged that “the road will be long and the difficulties a given.”

Tatar told a Turkish Cypriot newspaper last week that he had “no expectations” of any peace talks in the new year. He said Cuellar's mandate to identify areas of agreement will go nowhere if Turkish Cypriot “sovereignty and equality” are not accepted.