Ankara, Turkey. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a telephone call late on Monday to discuss the Cyprus problem and other geopolitical developments. The call came hours after UN envoy Maria Angela Holguin met Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara.
Call follows Holguin-Fidan meeting
According to the Turkish presidential communications directorate, Erdogan and Guterres discussed “the latest developments on the island of Cyprus”. Following Holguin’s meeting with Fidan, neither the United Nations nor the Turkish foreign ministry issued an official statement.
UN initiative and Turkish backing
The meeting and the telephone conversation form part of increased diplomatic activity within the framework of what has been described as a “new initiative” by the United Nations aimed at resuming formal negotiations.
High-level sources told Cyprus Mail last week that Erdogan has approved the initiative. The sources said Erdogan believes the absence of a solution to the Cyprus problem has “unduly cost Turkey through no fault of its own” in recent decades.
The same sources said Turkey’s support for the 2004 referendum and the 2017 negotiations, both rejected by the Greek Cypriot side, demonstrates Erdogan’s “pragmatic and constructive stance” and “will to engage in the hope of securing a solution to the Cyprus problem”.
Holguin’s recent meetings and next steps
Holguin met President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman last Friday. She said afterward that she would meet Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis later this week before travelling to Brussels.
She also said that after her visit to Brussels, she will return to Cyprus to hold further meetings with Christodoulides and Erhurman before the end of the month.
Plans for enlarged meeting
Holguin confirmed that an enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem, involving the island’s two sides, the three guarantor powers Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom, and the United Nations, is currently intended to be convened in late July or early August.
Earlier, both leaders had stressed that they want tangible results from the next enlarged meeting. After his meeting with Holguin, Christodoulides said “the goal is to lead us into an enlarged meeting, during which the resumption of talks will be announced”.
Erhurman made no statements after his meeting with Holguin. However, during an appearance on political talk show Er Meydani, he said an enlarged meeting must “yield meaningful results”.
