UN troops based at ‘deteriorating’ Ledra Palace Hotel to be relocated

UNITED Nations troops based at the Ledra Palace Hotel in the buffer zone will be relocated because of its deteriorating condition, the UN’s special representative in Cyprus Elizabeth Spehar revealed on Wednesday.

“It’s an old building,” she said. “It needs some work to make it really fully fit for purpose throughout, on all levels, and so we will be relocating our troops who are currently living there on the second floor, which is considered to be the most precarious part of the building, to alternative accommodation. But we will still be able to use parts of the Ledra Palace Hotel for some meetings and some activities.”

She was answering a question on the state of the building, constructed in the 1940s, during a press conference in New York after briefing the UN Security Council on the renewal of the peacekeeping forces’ mandate on the island.

Ms Spehar said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres remained “available” to the two leaders of Cyprus if they decided to resume talks and that “this will always be the case”.

With regards to Unficyp, Ms Spehar said the Security Council expressed its “support and acknowledgement that the mission still has a very important role to play in . . . maintaining calm and stability in and around the buffer zone”. In response to another question, she said an “internal review” into the granting of South Cyprus citizenship to Unficyp official Housein Mousa, which had enraged TRNC ministers, was being carried out “very professionally” and “thoroughly”.