A month has passed since Guterres’s visit, and the lack of progress is evident. In this vacuum, the announcement of weekly contacts between the two leaders is positive, as it sends, at the very least, a message of momentum. However, as the President of the Republic himself acknowledged, this is not enough. And it is not sufficient because time is not unlimited: the informal milestone of the UN General Assembly is approaching, and every week that passes without substantive progress is not neutral but wasted time.
Because the question isn’t how often the two leaders will meet, but whether there is a shared goal. Whether there are results and progress after each meeting. Let’s be honest based on what we’ve seen: the 2.5-hour meeting did not demonstrate that the two sides are moving closer together. On the contrary, contradictions and double-talk were evident. And at this stage, there should be more clarity rather than generalities regarding what was discussed.
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It is often argued that since the two leaders cannot agree on opening even a single crossing point, how can they possibly reach an agreement on the major issues—and this argument is partly valid. However, at this point, the issue is not only the disagreement over the crossing points but also the differing interpretations of the very expectations and conditions set by António Guterres for an expanded meeting. And when two sides cannot even agree on what “progress” means, every new meeting risks being merely another empty gesture.
Tufan Erhürman is proposing confidence-building measures and a methodology, while sidestepping the substance of the issue. This is likely because he has reservations about whether Ankara will support him in such an endeavor or whether he will be left out in the cold. The President of the Republic, on the other hand, says he is ready to resume substantive talks as early as tomorrow, even though there are contradictions regarding progress on the Confidence-Building Measures and the methodology.
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What remains, ultimately, is the sense of a battle of impressions. An effort by both sides to project the image of a dynamic process, allowing them to claim internally that the talks have not collapsed. But, at least from what has been seen so far, this is not leading to any real progress. The issue now is not just that time is being wasted, but that a Secretary-General who is committed to making progress is losing valuable momentum. And he certainly does not have the endless patience for drawn-out discussions.
