A United Nations representative on Tuesday said she might be able to revive peace talks on the ethnically divided island of Cyprus thanks to her background in negotiating an end to decades of conflict in her native Colombia.
María Ángela Holguín Cuellar, the U.N. chief's new personal envoy for Cyprus, said she believes she can work with both Greek Cypriots in the island's south and Turkish Cypriots in the north to get them back to the negotiating table after years of complete stalemate.
"I was part of that team that we finally reached a peace agreement" in Colombia, Holguín told reporters after her first meeting with the Greek Cypriot administration leader Nikos Christodoulides. "And I think I can collaborate and do all my best for ... a good result for Cyprus."
Holguín served as Colombia's top diplomat during 2010-2018 and as the country's representative to the U.N. during 2004-2006. It's her first trip to the Eastern Mediterranean island after her appointment earlier this month.
She is also meeting with Turkish Cypriot President Ersin Tatar later on Tuesday and will separately contact women's organizations and other civil society groups over the next few days for a first-hand assessment to gauge whether conditions have ripened for a resumption of full-fledged peace talks.
The island of Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Türkiye, as a guarantor power, prompted by a coup aimed at Greece's annexation of the island, launched a military intervention dubbed the Cyprus Peace Operation to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence.
As a result, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was founded on Nov. 15, 1983.
Since then, the violence has stopped but tensions continue, including over who holds sway on the island's exclusive offshore economic zone, over 40% of which was claimed by Türkiye following recent natural gas discoveries.
Türkiye doesn't recognize the Greek Cypriot administration as a state and still keeps some 35,000 troops in the TRNC.
The island has seen an on-and-off peace process recently, including a failed 2017 initiative in Switzerland under the auspices of guarantor countries Türkiye, Greece and the United Kingdom.
The Greek Cypriot administration was admitted to the European Union in 2004, the same year they thwarted a U.N. plan to end the longstanding dispute, but only the Greek Cypriot south enjoys its full benefits.
A Cyprus peace deal would reduce a source of potential conflict next door to an unstable Middle East and allow for the easier harnessing of hydrocarbon reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea's natural gas-rich waters.
But Holguín faces a tough task as the two sides have grown increasingly apart in the years since the last major push to reach a peace settlement in the summer of 2017.
The fact that U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has dispatched an envoy to tell him if it's worth another U.N.-facilitated round of negotiations indicates the degree of caution the world body is approaching the conflict after half a century of failure.
Türkiye and the Turkish Cypriots say the only way to peace now is a two-state deal, as opposed to reunifying the island as a federation composed of Greek and Turkish Cypriot zones.
Despite rejecting a deal on a federation previously, the majority of Greek Cypriots also reject anything that would formalize a partition, as well as demands for a Turkish Cypriot veto on all federal-level government decisions, permanent Turkish troop presence and Turkish military intervention rights.
Greek Cyprus administration spokesperson Constantinos Letymbiotis opposed Tatar's remark that Holguín's time to reach any assessment is limited to a few months.
"There's no timetable, no time limit," he said. "Certainly, we believe that if there's the same political will from the other side, the resumption of talks can happen very quickly."
Greek Cypriots are also eager to involve the EU more in the negotiations but Turkish Cyprus strongly opposes the idea because of the EU's "pro-Greek attitude" regarding the crisis and how it has "blocked an acceptable agreement and perpetuated the status quo" so far.
