Greek Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiades on Monday stressed the importance of the upcoming informal five-way meeting on Cyprus reunification in Geneva and urged Turkish Cypriots to support the renewal of dialogue
ATHENS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th April, 2021) Greek Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiades on Monday stressed the importance of the upcoming informal five-way meeting on Cyprus reunification in Geneva and urged Turkish Cypriots to support the renewal of dialogue.
The informal talks on Cyprus are scheduled to take place in Geneva from Tuesday to Thursday. The 5+1 meeting will bring together Cyprus' two communities, as well as Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom as guarantor powers, as well as the United Nations.
"This meeting is critically important to Cyprus. Knowing well how important it is, our side is going into it with decisiveness and the political will to create or help create conditions finally to start or renew substantive talks," Anastasiades said during his flight to Geneva, as quoted by the government's information office.
The president went on to stress the role of the 2019 UNSC resolution, which was adopted after the meeting of the Cypriot communities with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres the same year for the negotiations.
"I wish the other side would address [the issue] with the same will, the same view, because any deviation will harm not only Cypriot Greeks but Cypriot Turks as well," Anastasiades warned.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey sent its forces to the island purportedly to protect the island's Turkish population. In 1983, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus declared its independence, without being recognized by anyone except the Turkish government. Since then, the reunification process has been ongoing, but not without occasional lapses, the last one being the failed 2017 Crans-Montana negotiations, after which the negotiations ceased altogether.
