The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) maintains its uncompromising position on sovereign equality and equal international status regarding the restart of official negotiations with the Greek Cypriots, TRNC President Ersin Tatar told a U.N. official on Wednesday.
Tatar was speaking to reporters after hosting Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar, the personal representative of the U.N.'s secretary-general on Cyprus, for discussions that lasted about an hour at the presidential office in Lefkoşa (Nicosia).
Cuellar's mission is to explore the possibility of common ground for transitioning to a new and official negotiation process to resolve decades of conflict on the ethnically divided Mediterranean island.
Tatar said that without such common ground, initiating a meeting or restarting a negotiation process would be “futile.”
Reiterating the prerequisite for recognizing the acquired rights of the Turkish Cypriot side to engage in negotiations, the TRNC leader affirmed that it would not compromise on the principles of sovereign equality and equal international status.
"I conveyed to the U.N. that there is no change in our stance," Tatar affirmed. "I once again expressed to Cuellar our stance that negotiations can only be initiated with the confirmation of sovereign equality and equal international status."
He also said the TRNC expects from Cuellar, whose term concludes on July 5, “an objective report encompassing pertinent truths.”
Cuellar said she conveyed to Tatar the importance of the international community's support for a resolution in Cyprus.
The U.N. envoy met with Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides before crossing the U.N.-patrolled cease-fire line for talks with Tatar.
"My impression is that everyone wants to move forward and have something happen on the island," the Colombian diplomat told reporters after meeting Christodoulides.
"I hope the leaders are listening to the people."
The "common ground is in civil society, but we have to move to the leaders and ask them to move forward," she added.
Cuellar's visit marks her third trip to Cyprus since being appointed by the U.N. secretary-general to assess the potential for common ground between the parties. Her stay on the island is anticipated until May 14.
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 recently seen an on-and-off peace process, 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.
Cuellar faces a herculean task as Turkish and Greek Cypriots have grown increasingly apart over the years since the last major push to reach a peace settlement in the summer of 2017.
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.
Many observers see this latest U.N. initiative as a last chance for Cyprus. The U.N. chief Antonio Guterres has warned in a recent report: "The prospects of a solution that everyone can accept are gradually fading."
"What matters at this moment is to let diplomacy work," the Greek Cypriot administration’s spokesperson, Konstantinos Letymbiotis, said Wednesday.
"We hope within the next six months, in the immediate future, the resumption of negotiations will become feasible," he said, adding that the U.N. envoy would meet again Christodoulides on May 13.
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's natural gas-rich waters where Türkiye has a drillship probing the seabed.
