Monday could mark the end of Guterres’s Cyprus push says Holguin

“If nothing happens, my report to the Secretary-General will say, ‘Nothing happened.’ Goodbye, everyone. Goodbye to me, goodbye to Guterres,” Holguín told ANKA journalists Kenan Şener and Yusuf Kanlı in an interview at the UN Good Offices Mission in Nicosia.

Holguín will meet Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhürman and Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides on Monday, 9 November, after a week of meetings with both sides. She is seeking agreement on four new crossing points and the clearance of 70,000 square metres of mined land on each side in the Derinya area.

A deal on crossings and mine clearance would give Guterres a basis for deciding whether to bring the leaders together for a three-way meeting or go directly to a wider meeting with Türkiye, Greece and the United Kingdom. Holguín said the wider meeting would mark the start of formal negotiations. Neither meeting has a date.

Even if the leaders agree on Monday’s package, they still have work to do on how renewed talks would proceed. Holguín said she had expected more common ground by now. She said the sides had agreed on political equality and that a rotating presidency was part of it, although securing an explicit commitment from Christodoulides before talks would be “very difficult”.

She also asked Erhürman to spell out what should happen if talks collapse through no fault of the Turkish Cypriot side. He wants a fixed timeframe for negotiations and safeguards against an automatic return to the status quo. Holguín mentioned direct trade, direct flights and direct contacts as possible options, adding that direct trade with the EU would require Brussels’s involvement.

Holguín said the UN could keep pushing into the next secretary-general’s term if the process was still alive. Monday’s meeting could determine whether Guterres has time for one more attempt to bring the parties to the table, or whether his successor inherits a stalled process.