The UN Secretary General’s Special Representative in Cyprus Elizabeth Spehar will be in New York next week for internal meetings at the UN Headquarters on the UN Secretary General’s report on his good offices mission, a UN source has told CNA.
Invited to say if the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, will participate in these meetings, the same source noted that he will be in India next week and that the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo will participate.
The UNSG’s report is scheduled to be submitted to the UN Security Council on October 15 and will be discussed by the Council on October 30. The UN source said that an update on the UNSG’s envoy Jane Holl Lute`s consultations with the parties involved in the process for a Cyprus settlement will be included in this report. Lute has already had contacts with the two parties in Cyprus, the three guarantor powers – Greece, Turkey and the UK – as well as the EU.
Responding to another question, the UN source said that DiCarlo and Spehar will just discuss the report. “The Secretary General will make the decision on the way forward. Not Lute, not Spehar, not DiCarlo. He will listen to them all – the parties involved and his aides – and make up his own mind,” it noted.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied 37% of its territory. The latest round of UN-peace talks last year at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana ended without an agreement. Talks held under the auspices of the UN aim at reunifying Cyprus under a federal roof.
(Cyprus News Agency)
