New York signals change, but Cyprus is not ready to follow

By Yusuf Kanlı…..

New York may open the door, but Cyprus is not yet ready to walk through it

Cyprus is approaching another consequential week of diplomacy with more movement than clarity. María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar has briefed United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres by telephone. The Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot negotiators have discussed confidence-building measures, methodology and substantive aspects of the settlement. Nikos Christodoulides and Tufan Erhürman are scheduled to meet again on Sept. 17 before travelling to New York for separate meetings with Guterres and, quite possibly, a trilateral encounter.

Christodoulides has raised expectations by identifying the desired outcome of the UN General Assembly week as an announcement on the resumption of negotiations. His words represent a notable progression from the less ambitious language of maintaining momentum or continuing consultations. They do not, however, mean that such an announcement has already been agreed.

No joint text has emerged, no UN official has confirmed that Guterres has decided to launch formal negotiations, and the Turkish Cypriot side has not endorsed the Greek Cypriot leader’s formulation. Christodoulides has described the destination he wants to reach. Whether the two sides and the United Nations are travelling toward the same destination remains uncertain.

Eight weeks under examination

The New York consultations will effectively assess what the two leaders have accomplished in the approximately eight weeks since Guterres visited Cyprus in late July. The Sept. 17 encounter will be their third meeting since that visit, when the secretary-general called for progress in three interconnected areas: confidence-building measures, negotiating methodology and questions of substance.

Both Guterres and Holguín have made clear that another informal 5+1 meeting would require progress in all three areas. This condition prevents either side from using activity in one field to disguise stagnation in the others. A few modest confidence-building measures cannot substitute for agreement on the basis of negotiations, while procedural understandings will remain fragile if the political climate continues to deteriorate.

The public record is mixed. The leaders have committed themselves to regular meetings, and their negotiators are engaged across the three UN tracks. Yet their encounters have produced either limited joint language or no joint statement at all. Following their Sept. 9 meeting, they offered markedly different assessments, reinforcing the impression that they were still speaking past one another.

Guterres will expect them to explain what they have achieved since July. Another meeting without a concrete result would leave him with little justification for convening the guarantor countries or declaring that sufficient common ground exists for formal negotiations.

Holguín returns to the diplomatic centre

Holguín had been expected to meet Guterres in New York and travel to Cyprus via London where she would have talks with the new Cyprus team. Pneumonia forced her to cancel both journeys, but she subsequently briefed the secretary-general by telephone. Christodoulides confirmed that the conversation had taken place and said his administration had received an initial briefing, while declining to disclose its contents.

That discretion suggests that the conversation involved politically sensitive assessments rather than routine scheduling. Holguín has been trying to determine whether enough common ground exists for another expanded meeting and, eventually, a structured negotiating process. Her inability to travel disrupted the diplomatic choreography but did not halt the effort.

Holguín is now expected at UN headquarters during the General Assembly’s high-level week, from Sept. 22 to 28, provided her health permits the journey. Christodoulides has also disclosed that he will meet Guterres on Sept. 24, making Holguín’s anticipated presence particularly relevant to the secretary-general’s consultations with the two Cypriot leaders.

The format remains unsettled. It is unclear whether Holguín will see the leaders individually or jointly, or whether Guterres will convene the trilateral meeting Christodoulides has suggested may take place. Nor has another 5+1 been confirmed. What appears certain is that Holguín’s assessment will weigh heavily in the secretary-general’s decision on whether the latest engagement has produced enough substance to justify the next step.

Her presence is particularly important because she has developed a realistic appreciation of the positions, expectations and psychological barriers of both sides. She appears conscious that another open-ended negotiation, launched without agreed rules or sufficient political preparation, could cause greater damage than a carefully managed delay.

A substantive meeting, but no disclosed agreement

The latest meeting between Greek Cypriot negotiator Menelaos Menelaou and Turkish Cypriot negotiator Mehmet Dana provided a modest indication that the sides are addressing more than ceremonial matters. Their discussion was described as substantive and covered all three areas designated by Guterres.

No details were released about where the negotiators agreed or remained divided. There is no confirmation that they settled the dispute over new crossing points, reached a limited demining arrangement or agreed on another practical confidence-building measure. Nor is it known whether they narrowed the differences concerning previous convergences or the rules governing a new negotiation.

Describing the meeting as substantive is encouraging because it shows that the sides are at least examining the architecture of a possible process. It cannot be treated as evidence that the architecture has been agreed. The Sept. 17 leaders’ meeting will reveal whether Menelaou and Dana were preparing common decisions or merely cataloguing the disagreements that will follow the leaders to New York.

Christodoulides has suggested that the two sides are relatively close on methodology. Erhürman has been more restrained, concentrating instead on the continuing erosion of trust. The difference between their public assessments is revealing: the Greek Cypriot leader emphasises proximity to a negotiating process, while the Turkish Cypriot leader questions whether the political climate necessary to sustain one is being protected.

An unfinished record of earlier negotiations

The United Nations is compiling an inventory of convergences reached during previous rounds of negotiations. The exercise is intended to establish where the two sides had approached agreement and distinguish genuine convergences from proposals, informal understandings and ideas that were never mutually accepted.

The inventory could prevent the parties from selectively rewriting the history of earlier negotiations. It may also demonstrate that much of the technical architecture of a settlement already exists and that a new process need not begin with a blank sheet.

Its limitations are equally important. The document remains unfinished and will not automatically constitute a binding negotiating acquis. It may clarify what was discussed but cannot, by itself, determine which understandings must be preserved. That requires a political agreement between the sides.

The traditional principle that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” was intended to encourage flexibility. It allowed leaders to explore compromises without becoming permanently bound before a comprehensive package was completed. After repeated failures and successive changes of leadership, however, the same principle enabled previously settled questions to be reopened.

This difficulty is not new. Nikos Anastasiades and Derviş Eroğlu required months to agree on how negotiations should resume, eventually producing the Joint Declaration of Feb. 11, 2014. The lesson remains relevant: even when the two sides claim adherence to a familiar settlement framework, agreement on the starting point, objective and rules can become a negotiation in itself.

Christodoulides says the process should continue from where it ended at Crans-Montana. Erhürman insists that previous convergences must be protected. Those positions sound compatible, but important questions remain. Which understandings qualify as convergences? Will they form the working baseline? Can either side reopen them? How will understandings in one chapter be treated when they were linked to expected compromises in another?

An inventory can clarify the historical record. It cannot supply the political commitment needed to preserve it.

Erhürman’s four conditions

From a Turkish Cypriot perspective, the central question is not whether negotiations should resume but whether the next process will be structurally different from those that failed before. Turkish Cypriots have repeatedly entered negotiations in which political equality was accepted rhetorically but disputed whenever it had to be translated into effective participation and decision-making.

Erhürman has therefore advanced four interconnected requirements. Political equality must be confirmed in practical terms, including effective participation, rotating leadership and a Turkish Cypriot affirmative vote in specified areas. Negotiations must be time-bound. Previous convergences must be protected. Finally, if the process collapses because one side abandons the agreed basis, the parties should not simply return to the unchanged status quo.

The fourth requirement remains the most difficult. Christodoulides says he accepts political equality, the preservation of convergences and a process that is not open-ended, but rejects predetermined consequences in the event of another failure.

The Greek Cypriot objection is understandable if “consequences” are interpreted as automatic recognition of partition or acceptance of two sovereign states. That need not be the only interpretation. Consequences could involve an agreed review mechanism, a formal UN assessment of responsibility, the gradual removal of measures that unnecessarily isolate Turkish Cypriots, or incentives tied to continued adherence to the agreed process.

A time limit without an understanding of what follows failure may become an empty device. Either party could allow the calendar to expire, confident that the status quo would automatically reassert itself. The purpose of safeguards should be to encourage compromise and discourage obstruction, not to predetermine the final settlement.

Trust cannot be compartmentalised

The greatest immediate obstacle may not be the constitutional chapters but the erosion of trust outside the negotiating room. Erhürman has repeatedly drawn attention to the cancellation or obstruction of Turkish Cypriot cultural and sporting activities, controversies over international academic visibility, property-related prosecutions and regional initiatives from which Turkish Cypriots are excluded.

Greek Cypriots view the same environment differently. They point to property transactions in the north, developments in Varosha and Turkish demands for sovereign equality as evidence that partition is being consolidated while negotiations are discussed.

Each side therefore approaches the table believing that the other is changing conditions on the ground. This creates a destructive paradox: leaders declare their readiness for a settlement while actions taken elsewhere steadily reduce the trust required to negotiate one.

The obstruction of cultural, youth and sporting activities is especially damaging because it affects precisely the constituencies from which support for reconciliation must eventually come. Such actions may be defended as necessary to protect the international status of the Republic of Cyprus. Their practical effect, however, can be to strengthen the Turkish Cypriot perception that Greek Cypriots intend to represent the entire island internationally while denying Turkish Cypriots an effective voice.

Confidence-building measures are therefore not decorative additions to the political process. They are an immediate test of whether the two sides can cooperate without converting every practical issue into a dispute over recognition.

The crossings test

The debate over new crossing points illustrates the difficulty. The Turkish Cypriot side treats Haspolat–Pyroi, Akıncılar–Louroujina and Erenköy–Kokkina as elements of a broader package. The Greek Cypriot side views the Athienou–Pyroi–Aglantzia connection as an integrated corridor and resists additions it considers politically or strategically unrelated.

Neither position is entirely technical. Both sides assess crossings through considerations of territorial access, security, political symbolism and the risk of conferring status. Measures intended to bring the communities closer thus become trapped in the conflict they are supposed to soften.

A compromise need not resolve all crossing proposals simultaneously. It could establish an agreed sequence, provided that sequencing is not used to remove the rest of the package permanently from consideration. Progress on Haspolat–Pyroi, accompanied by a timetable for examining the remaining crossings, would give Guterres visible evidence that the leaders can translate dialogue into action.

A limited demining arrangement or an emergency civil-protection mechanism would offer another practical opening. The Kyrenia ferry disaster and the island’s recurring fires underline the need for cooperation that protects lives without awaiting a comprehensive settlement. Such arrangements would have humanitarian value while creating habits of joint action.

The regional clock is also ticking

The Cyprus problem is no longer unfolding in a static Eastern Mediterranean. Energy partnerships, maritime disputes, military cooperation and competing regional alignments increasingly connect the island to a wider strategic contest involving Türkiye, Greece, Israel, Egypt, the European Union and the United States.

Greek Cypriot participation in regional security and energy arrangements is presented in Nicosia as the sovereign activity of an internationally recognised state. Turkish Cypriots see their systematic exclusion as proof that Greek Cypriots intend to represent the entire island while denying them any meaningful role.

Türkiye, meanwhile, increasingly treats Cyprus as one component of a wider Eastern Mediterranean balance involving maritime jurisdiction, energy routes, relations with the EU and regional security. This creates a legitimate concern that Cyprus could become bargaining leverage in a broader geopolitical contest. It would be equally mistaken, however, to imagine that the problem can be resolved without addressing Türkiye’s security role and the external imbalance surrounding the island.

A sustainable settlement must reassure Greek Cypriots that Türkiye’s regional weight will not dominate Cyprus while assuring Turkish Cypriots that Greek Cypriot numerical superiority, EU membership and exclusive international recognition will not reduce them to a protected minority.

That requires more than reviving old terminology. A very loose federal-confederal roof joining two politically equal constituent states could preserve one international personality and common EU and UN representation while leaving extensive internal authority with each community. A presidential council with rotating leadership, balanced composition and decisions requiring at least one Turkish Cypriot affirmative vote would provide a more credible expression of partnership than an unconstrained majoritarian system.

The guiding principle should be cooperation before constitutional consolidation. Institutions will endure only if they rest on functioning habits of joint action.

What New York may produce

Several outcomes remain possible. Guterres could welcome the leaders’ engagement and announce further structured consultations. He could convene another informal 5+1. He could declare that sufficient common ground exists for time-bound negotiations. The most ambitious result would be a joint understanding defining the basis, methodology, treatment of convergences and safeguards of a comprehensive process.

The available evidence points toward an intermediate outcome rather than an immediate return to full negotiations. Guterres is unlikely to announce an open-ended process whose basis is contested and whose first stage would be consumed by disagreements over where previous talks ended. He may, however, conclude that enough movement exists to convene another expanded meeting or begin structured preparations for negotiations.

For a stronger announcement to become credible, the Sept. 17 leaders’ meeting should produce a compact but meaningful package: progress on crossings or another practical confidence-building measure; an agreed method for completing and using the convergences inventory; confirmation of political equality and effective participation; and an outline of a time-bound process that does not reward deliberate obstruction.

None of these steps would prejudge the final settlement. Together, they would demonstrate that a new process would be more disciplined and better prepared than its predecessors.

A process must be worth announcing

The diplomatic window is narrowing not only because the two communities are losing patience but because the international circumstances may soon change. Guterres is approaching the end of his term. No one can guarantee that his successor will devote comparable attention to Cyprus or retain a personal envoy with Holguín’s experience, determination and realism.

That urgency should encourage serious preparation, not a premature announcement. A badly designed process could collapse quickly, deepen public cynicism and strengthen those who argue that negotiated coexistence is impossible.

Christodoulides’ objective of securing an announcement on the resumption of negotiations is welcome, but the value of that announcement will depend on what lies beneath it. Erhürman’s requirements should be discussed as safeguards intended to make negotiations meaningful, not dismissed as excuses to avoid them. At the same time, the Turkish Cypriot side must demonstrate that those safeguards can be translated into workable provisions rather than an impossible threshold.

Holguín’s briefing to Guterres, her anticipated presence in New York, the negotiators’ substantive discussion and the Sept. 17 leaders’ meeting form the most significant diplomatic sequence in some time. They justify cautious attention, but not premature celebration.

Time is running out, but time is not the only enemy. The more persistent threats are incompatible expectations, declining trust, regional rivalry and the belief that another failure would simply return everyone to familiar positions without political cost. Unless those problems are confronted, New York may produce another elegantly worded promise. If they are addressed, it could open a process that is finally worth announcing.

Source and About the Author

Yusuf Kanlı is an independent writer and publisher of the Substack newsletter “Yusuf Kanlı | Substack“.

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