‘Time not right for UN to appoint new special rep’
THE time is not right for the United Nations to appoint a “special representative” to Cyprus, President Ersin Tatar has said.
The idea had reportedly been put forward by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during a meeting he had with Mr Tatar in Brussels at the end of June, in a bid to “accelerate” ongoing efforts to find “common ground” for the start of formal Cyprus settlement talks.
However Mr Tatar said during a visit to the TRNC by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in Lefkoşa that appointing a special representative for Cyprus before starting the official negotiation process “would not be meaningful and might even cause problems”.
He stressed that UN “senior official” Jane Holl Lute is already working to examine whether there is a common ground to start official negotiations.
Speaking during a joint press conference with Mr Çavuşoğlu, President Tatar said that official talks could only start with the acceptance of the “sovereign equality” of the Turkish Cypriot side.
Mr Çavuşoğlu said that appointing a special representative would “only be meaningful if a decision was taken to start a new negotiation process”.
He emphasised that Turkey “fully supports the settlement vision to establish a cooperative relationship between the two states on the island on the basis of sovereign equality”.
During his recent trip to the TRNC, Mr Çavuşoğlu also met with representatives from the Turkish Resistance Organisation (TMT) Association and the TRNC Higher Education Planning, Evaluation, Accreditation and Coordination Council.