The two sides in one of Europe’s longest running disputes have expressed their optimism about fresh talks which are set to start on Wednesday.
Informal talks are set to start in New York, chaired by the UN secretary general António Guterres, with the UK involved as one of the guarantor powers for the Mediterranean island.
The breakaway Turkish Cypriots in the unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus have promised “a new approach” to the talks, while the Republic of Cyprus government in the south say they enter the talks with a “positive spirit”.
The talks are also set to involve the UK as one of the island’s former guarantor powers with Keir Starmer hoping to make it the latest in a succession of international agreements.
After a series of successes on the international stage, including a Brexit reset and trade deals with the US and India, the prime minister is now looking at ending the 51-year division on the island of Cyprus.
It comes after Ersin Tatar, the president of the unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) sought help from Boris Johnson in a visit to the UK in late June.
Mr Tatar met with the former prime minister after holding his talks with UK minister Stephen Doughty for the first time in the Foreign Office (FCDO), who is set to lead for the UK in the New York talks.
Mr Johnson, who has Turkish heritage, was UK foreign secretary during the last formal talks on the island in 2015 to 2017 in Crans Montana, Switzerland which collapsed.
Turkish and Greek Cypriots are still deadlocked over the decades-long division of their island.
President Tatar, supported by Turkey’s president Recep Erdoğan, is pushing for equal recognition and a two-state solution with the island divided in practice since 1974. However, the recognised Cypriot government is still pushing for a federal solution to reunite the island.
But Mr Tatar has said that he has agreed to look for a new way of resolving the disputes by using the talks to find mutual cooperation on issues which benefit both sides.
He said: “Our new approach is basically for the two sides to cooperate on various matters, including energy, water, new economic opportunities, clearing the land from all mines, especially in the buffer zone, even repairing reciprocity the old cemeteries on both sides.
“We want to have investment in solar energy, in renewable energy in the buffer zone where we have a lot of land which is sitting there for nothing. So we can use a lot of investment to generate energy and share it with the Greek Cypriots for our common good.”
He also thinks the island will benefit with a new cable running from Turkey which is just 60km from Cyprus. The issue has been further complicated over disputes on who owns oil and gas reserves close to the island.
Meanwhile, Spyros Miltiades, deputy high commissioner for Cyprus in London, told The Independent: “The Republic of Cyprus is going to the new meeting in New York, in a positive spirit hoping to see things move forward.
“Our position is that in New York we should have result oriented discussions that will create the conditions to go to the next step, which is to start direct negotiations within the UN agreed framework for a comprehensive solution of the Cyprus problem from where we were left in Crans Montana in 2017.
“The only framework of negotiations that the Republic of Cyprus and the rest of the international community accept, is the UN agreed framework of Bizonal Bicommunal Federation.”
He added: “We hope that all parties concerned will attend the meeting in goodwill and ready to engage in a meaningful dialogue within this framework that will bring us closer to the island’s reunification. After all these decades of on-going UN-led rounds of negotiations, we have reached convergences in most aspects of the Cyprus issue that could make a settlement reachable.”
Mr Tatar’s meeting in June with Mr Doughty was the first meeting between a TRNC representative and a UK minister in government Whitehall offices in recent memory. The minister is understood to have refused to have a picture taken with Tatar in his office such is the sensitivity around the Cyprus issue.
An FCDO source said: “Mr Doughty met Ersin Tatar informally, as leader of the Turkish Cypriot community to discuss ongoing UN-led efforts to reach a Cyprus settlement, as we approach the next UN-led meeting between the parties and guarantor powers in July.”
The TRNC leader had earlier sought help from former prime minister Boris Johnson.
The UN secretary general announced in early May the appointment of María Angela Holguín Cuéllar as his personal envoy on Cyprus, who is tasked to reengage with the parties in order to work on next steps on the issue. Her appointment has been welcomed by both sides.
Additionally, the European Commission designated Johannes Hahn, a former European commissioner, as special envoy for Cyprus to contribute to the settlement process, in close cooperation with Mrs Holguín.
Ms Hahn’s appointment underlines the EU’s commitment to the reunification of Cyprus. It comes at critical juncture with hope that any substantive progress in the EU-Turkey relations is linked with progress over the Cyprus issue.
The UK, as the former colonial power which still has two military bases on Cyprus, is the guarantor power along with Greece and Turkey.
The island has been divided since the Turkish army intervened in 1974 following a Greek-Cypriot military coup which led to ethnic conflict. Turkey’s army has remained in the north since then, with Turkish Cypriots seeing them as a defensive force and the Greek Cypriots, supported by the international community, as occupiers. The TRNC declared itself to be an independent state in 1983 but has not been recognised outside Turkey.
Turkish Cypriots argue that the division began in 1963 with the collapse of the ethnic power sharing arrangement following attacks on the Turkish Cypriot community just three years after independence from the UK.
In 2004 the Annan Plan at the United Nations almost saw reunification but was rejected at the last minute by the Greek Cypriots in a referendum in the south even though the Turkish Cypriots voted in favour.
Despite this Cyprus was allowed to become a member of the EU which critics, including former foreign secretary Jack Straw, claim has made the problem almost impossible to resolve.
