In a post today, Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman stated that he hopes for a 5+1 meeting with guaranteed results, noting that he is traveling to New York tomorrow, where he will hold meetings with the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy on Cyprus, María Ángela Olguín, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, noting that this will be the third time he has met with Mr. Guterres in the 11 months he has been at the helm of the Turkish Cypriot community.
As reported in the occupied areas, Mr. Erhurman referred to the UN Secretary-General’s initiatives and remarks during this period regarding the Cyprus issue, noting the desire expressed by Mr. Guterres, when he visited Cyprus, to convene a new 5+1 meeting, stating that he expects substantial progress to be made on the Confidence-Building Measures, the methodology, and the substantive issues.
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Regarding the CBMs, Tufan Erhurman writes that the UN Secretary-General proposed joint mechanisms “for border crossings, demining, disaster management, and irregular migration, EU citizenship rights for children born to mixed-marriage couples, and a joint committee on sports and civil society.”
In recent remarks, he continued, when asked about the possibility of holding a 5+1 meeting, the Secretary-General stated that there is still a lot of work to be done and that we must not repeat the mistakes of the past.
“As we have always said, after so many fruitless experiences, we do not consider a 5+1 meeting to be appropriate simply for the sake of holding a 5+1 meeting, or negotiations for the sake of negotiations. We want a 5+1 meeting whose results will be guaranteed in advance by the meetings taking place in Nicosia, and negotiations that will lead us to a solution this time, in accordance with our people’s will for a solution.”
Therefore, Mr. Erhurman writes, as the UN Secretary-General said after Crans-Montana, “this time it must be different” and, as he said in his latest statements, “the mistakes of the past must not be repeated.”
Mr. Erhurman emphasizes, as he wrote, the progress that must be made in the Joint Working Groups and in the methodology, as Mr. Guterres has also stated.
In short, he concluded, “we agree with the Secretary-General’s approaches. As we have done so far, we will continue to support the Secretary-General’s efforts within the framework of these approaches for the remainder of his term.”
