The European Unions welcomes the developments regarding the informal meeting between Cyprus President Christodoulides, Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar and UNSG Antonio Guterres in Tuesday, Commission spokesperson for external relations Peter Stano said during the European Commission’s midday briefing in Brussels on Wednesday.
Stano stressed that the EU will continue to support the UNSG’s efforts as well as “further UN facilitated exchanges and steps that should follow on this meeting.”
“For the European Union, Cyprus is one of the EU’s member states” Stano stressed, adding that “of course, we welcome this development and express full support to the efforts of the United Nations Secretary General in this regard, and we will continue supporting further UN facilitated exchanges and steps that should follow on this meeting”.
The Commission spokesperson repeated that “the position of the European Union is very clear on the issue of a Cyprus settlement.”
EU leaders “have reiterated on several occasions that the European Union remains fully committed and supports the comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem, and they also expressed and repeated the readiness of the European Union to play an active role in supporting all stages of this UN led process” he added.
Responding on how the EU could contribute to a restart to the dialogue, Stano pointed out that the EU is committed to supporting this process but added that “let’s not forget, this is the UN led process”.
“So we will continue supporting all the activities by the UN Secretary General or in general UN-led activities that help bring us closer to solving this problem” he said.
The spokesperson said that the Cyprus issue is of “vital interest” for the EU as Cyprus is a member state. “We fully respect and fully support the ongoing UN-led process that hopefully will bring some results, hopefully very, very soon” he stressed.
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.