Erhurman’s undersecretary Dana holds meetings in New York over UN reports

Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman’s undersecretary Mehmet Dana held meetings over the weekend with various diplomats in New York following the publishing of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ latest reports on the state of the UN’s peacekeeping force in Cyprus (Unficyp) and its good offices.

According to Erhurman’s office, Dana held meetings with representatives to the UN of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Germany, Pakistan, Liberia, and Panama, as well as with UN undersecretary-general for peacebuilding Rosemary DiCarlo.

It said that he had discussed with the national representatives “the latest developments regarding the Cyprus issue, the assessments contained in [Guterres’] reports, and matters related to the security council resolution” over the renewal of Unficyp’s mandate later this month.

With DiCarlo, it said, he had discussed “the diplomatic process regarding the Cyprus issue, the positions of the two sides, and possible steps for the upcoming period”.

It is expected that UN envoy Maria Angela Holguin will return to Cyprus this month to hold meetings with both Erhurman and President Nikos Christodoulides, with a fresh enlarged meeting set to take place in the weeks that follow.

That enlarged meeting will bring together the island’s two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the UN, though Erhurman said last month that it “should not be held without prior agreements on certain issues in Nicosia”.

Meanwhile, in New York, the UN security council is set to vote on January 29 on renewing the UN’s peacekeeping force in Cyprus (Unficyp)’s mandate for another year.

Unficyp has a rolling one-year mandate which was most recently extended on January 31 last year, with all 15 security council members at the time, including guarantor powers Greece and the United Kingdom, voting in favour of the motion, which also took stock of the state of the Cyprus problem.

Ahead of this year’s vote, Abukar Dahir Osman, the permanent representative to the UN of Somalia, which took over the security council’s rotating presidency at the beginning of this month, said that no problems are foreseen regarding the renewal of Unficyp’s mandate.

“I do not think there will be any problem. The security council continues to support the secretary-general [Antonio Guterres]’ good offices and remains committed to an approach based on dialogue and de-escalation,” he told the Cyprus News Agency.

He stressed the importance of “respecting the existing regime in the buffer zone” which separates Cyprus’ two sides and described Unficyp’s role to this end as “stabilising”.