Guterres rules out New York Cyprus meeting

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has ruled out holding a new Cyprus meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, confirming that months of diplomatic activity since his visit to the island have not yet created the conditions for another high-level gathering.

Guterres said on Wednesday that neither a 3+1 nor a 5+1 meeting would take place on September 28, insisting that further preparation was required before bringing the parties together again.
Asked whether the necessary conditions had been established for a meeting in New York, the UN chief said they had not, stressing that any future gathering would need to have a genuine prospect of producing an outcome.
“We are determined to move things forward and we are determined to do everything possible to make this happen when the conditions are met for the meeting to be successful,” he said.

The announcement removes expectations that the UN General Assembly could provide the stage for the next major step in the Cyprus process and indicates that efforts since Guterres’ latest visit to the island have so far failed to produce sufficient common ground for him to call another meeting.
The UN chief has repeatedly made clear that he does not want to convene another expanded Cyprus conference simply for the sake of holding talks, and his latest comments suggest that he remains unconvinced that another gathering at this stage would produce tangible results.
The timing is also significant for Guterres, whose second and final term as Secretary-General ends on December 31.
This month’s gathering of world leaders in New York will be his final UN General Assembly as Secretary-General, reducing the remaining opportunities for him personally to oversee another major Cyprus initiative before leaving office.
Guterres has been closely involved with the Cyprus problem throughout his tenure, most notably during the failed Crans-Montana conference in Switzerland in 2017, and has subsequently backed repeated attempts to establish whether sufficient common ground exists for formal negotiations to resume.

The latest diplomatic push had raised expectations that another expanded meeting involving the two Cypriot sides, the guarantor powers and the United Nations could take place before the end of his term.
Those expectations have now been dampened.
Although Guterres stressed that the UN remained committed to the Cyprus process and left the possibility of another meeting open if conditions improve, his decision means that New York will not provide the anticipated setting for a fresh initiative.
With both Cypriot leaders and representatives of the guarantor powers expected to be in New York during the General Assembly, the absence of an expanded meeting will inevitably focus attention on what, if any, progress has been achieved during the latest round of diplomatic contacts.
It also leaves increasingly little time for another major gathering under Guterres.

For now, the UN position is clear: another Cyprus meeting remains possible, but only when the Secretary-General believes there is sufficient groundwork to give it a realistic chance of producing results.