UN Secretary General`s Special Representative and UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) Head, Elizabeth Spehar, will hold meetings with Cyprus President, Nicos Anastasiades, and Turkish Cypriot leader, Mustafa Akinci, as well as other actors of both sides in Cyprus, in view of the UN Security Council`s discussion on UNFICYP in July.
UNFICYP spokesperson, Aleem Siddique, has told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) that “in the weeks leading up to the renewal of UNFICYP’s mandate, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Cyprus Elizabeth Spehar will be meeting senior officials on both sides of the island, as she has done in previous years, to discuss the implementation of Security Council Resolution 2453.”
Asked if Spehar`s contacts will include meetings with President Anastasiades and Akinci, Siddique said with the “leaders and senior officials on both sides.”
With its 2453 resolution, adopted on January 30, 2019, the UN Security Council renewed UNFICYP`s mandate for six more months. Moreover, among others, it requested the Secretary-General “to submit by 10 July 2019 a report on implementation of this resolution, including progress on confidence-building measures, efforts towards establishing mechanisms to alleviate tensions and address island-wide matters and efforts of the two Leaders to prepare the communities for a settlement, and on how UN activities on Cyprus can be best configured to advance political progress while preserving stability, and to keep the Security Council updated on events as necessary.”
Spehar is expected to fly to New York in July in view of the presentation and the discussion of the UNSG`s report on UNFICYP at the Security Council.
(Cyprus News Agency)
