DiCarlo to meet Cyprus President at noon on Monday, sources tell CNA

UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo is set to meet with President Nikos Christodoulides at noon on Monday. Earlier, at 10:30, she will meet with Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, according to sources who spoke to CNA.

On Monday afternoon, DiCarlo will meet with the Cyprus Women Bi-Communal Coalition at Ledra Palace, in the Nicosia buffer zone.

After Nicosia, the UN official is scheduled to visit Ankara and Athens.

In statements yesterday evening, President Christodoulides expressed his readiness to attend a joint meeting with DiCarlo and the Turkish Cypriot leader.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third. Repeated rounds of UN-led peace talks have so far failed to yield results. The latest round of negotiations, in July 2017 at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana ended inconclusively.

On October 15, 2024, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hosted an informal dinner in New York with Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides and Ersin Tatar, the leader of the breakaway Turkish Cypriots in the Turkish occupied part of the ethnically-split island, encouraging “the leaders to consider how to bridge the gap in their positions and rebuild trust to allow movement leading to a settlement.”

At the meeting, President Christodoulides and Tatar agreed to have an informal meeting in a broader format in the near future, under the auspices of the Secretary-General, to discuss the way forward. They also agreed to have a meeting in Cyprus to explore the possibility of opening new crossings.

Α new meeting between President Christodoulides and Tatar aimed at building trust that included opening new crossing points across a UN-controlled buffer zone took place 20.1.2025 ended without an agreement due to Turkish intransigence. The two said in a joint statement that they have instructed their representatives to continue talks and that they would meet “in the coming days. A new meeting between the two is expected to take place soon.