UN chief says: Cyprus talks show progress but no ‘quick fix’

Talks to resolve the division of ethnically-divided Cyprus have been showing encouraging results, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday, but cautioned against expectations of a quick fix.
Flanked by Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, Guterres said instruments were needed to implement an end to a conflict which has defied mediation for decades.
“Our goal here is to get the necessary results, and to do that we want to work seriously for the amount of time that is necessary,” he said. “We are facing so many situations of disaster, we badly need a symbol of hope. I strongly believe Cyprus can be the symbol hope of the beginning of 2017.”
Turkish Cypriot leaders have agreed in principle to return some of the land they have controlled since the failed 1974 coup.
Guterres is chairing a security conference on Cyprus in Geneva, attended by the foreign ministers of Greece, Turkey and Britain who are guarantor powers of the island under a convoluted treaty system which granted Cyprus independence from Britain in 1960.
Guterres was undertaking his first foreign trip as the UN’s new secretary general in a bid to achieve a breakthrough at a Geneva summit that involves rival Cypriot sides as well as Greece, Turkey and former colonial power Britain.
The top diplomats from Britain, Greece and Turkey joined the UN-hosted talks. 
The arrival of Foreign Ministers Boris Johnson of Britain, Nikos Kotzias of Greece and Mevlut Cavusoglu of Turkey means years of efforts to reunify Cyprus have reached high-level diplomacy, tackling security issues for the first time. Security is pivotal to any deal to end the 43-year split because it strikes at the heart of fears among both Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
The ministers were hoping to make progress that could pave the way for their prime ministers to join, a possible signal that a wide-ranging accord also involving issues like governance, property and territory could be on tap. Britain is a former colonial overseer in Cyprus, and today operates two military bases on the island.
“The prime minister will travel to Geneva if there are signs that a resolution is achievable,” Greek government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos told reporters in Athens, referring to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. A spokesman for Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said he, too, was waiting for signs of progress from the foreign ministers.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was also participating in the talks.
Turkey stationed some 35,000 troops in the breakaway north following the 1974 coup by Greek Cypriots hoping to unify Cyprus with Greece. The minority Turkish Cypriots see Turkey’s military might as their sole insurance against any Greek Cypriot hostility if a peace deal unravels, and insist on keeping the troops as part of a final accord.
Greek Cypriots consider a Turkish troop presence as a threat and an instrument of Ankara’s influence on the island. They insist that Turkey, which is not a European Union member state, should neither keep troops on the island nor have the right to intervene militarily in Cyprus, which is part of the 28-country EU bloc.
The eastern Mediterranean island has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded in response to an Athens-inspired coup seeking union with Greece.
Thursday’s multi-party talks follow three days of negotiations between Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci aiming to forge a united, two-zone federation.
The intra-Cypriot talks have focused on thorny domestic issues such as territory and what a future, unified government might look like.
UN Cyprus envoy Espen Barth Eide has called this week “the moment of truth” and insisted that a deal to solve the long-standing division was within reach.
Guterres, in office since Jan. 1, was hosting top diplomats from Cyprus’s so-called “guarantor powers,” including British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, and his counterparts Nikos Kotzias of Greece and Turkey’s Mevlut Cavusoglu.
Under a 1959 treaty, those nations were allowed to intervene to defend the island’s sovereign integrity, which Ankara used to justify its invasion.
Any peace deal will likely include significant changes to or even the elimination of the guarantor power arrangement.
Greece has called it out of date and Britain has said it was happy to give it up if Cypriots asked, but Turkey on Thursday insisted that some form of the system needed to be preserved.
“Taking into consideration the current situation in our region, continuation of the Security and Guarantees system... is a necessity,” Cavusoglu told the closed-door conference, according to a speech released from his office.
Britain also retains military bases in Cyprus that are sovereign British territory but has offered to give up nearly half of its land as part of a final settlement.
The estimated 30,000 Turkish troops deployed on the island remain a deeply divisive issue, with Anastasiades wanting them to leave the island but Akinci determined to keep a military presence.
UN peacekeepers also safeguard a buffer zone between the two sides.
Greek Cypriot government spokesman Nikos Christodoulides said that the presented map was “within the framework” agreed during previous negotiations that foresees the Turkish Cypriot zone amounting to a maximum of 29.2 percent of the island.
“We consider it as a particularly positive development,” Christodoulides said while noting that disputes remain and a final map has not been agreed.
On Tuesday the two sides tackled the island’s relations with the European Union, with the UN seeking to create a unified nation that would be a full EU member.
While Cyprus has been an EU member state since 2004, Anastasiades’s internationally recognized government exercises no control over the northern Turkish-ruled part of the island, and EU legislation is suspended there until a settlement is reached.
The foreign ministers of Britain, Greece and Turkey met on Thursday to thrash out a security deal for a reunited Cyprus and end a conflict rooted in Britain’s colonial past and Greek and Turkish rivalry in the region.
For the first time in decades, the three countries were to discuss a 1960 treaty cited by at least one of them in the past as a basis for intervening in the Mediterranean island.
Greek Cypriots and their ally Greece want an overhaul of the current security setup, while Turkish Cypriots and Turkey say it must be maintained.
“Continuing the security and guarantor arrangements, which have been the basis of security and stability on the island for the last 43 years, is a necessity given the situation in the region,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a conference at the Geneva headquarters of the UN.
“We are expecting this issue to be evaluated with an understanding in line with the realities on the island.”
Cyprus was split by a Turkish invasion in 1974 that followed a brief coup engineered by the military then ruling Greece. It has remained split ever since, with Turkish Cypriots in the north of the island and Greek Cypriots in the south.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was also in attendance. Cyprus is a member of the European Union, represented by the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government.

Source : Arab News