Cyprus urges UN intervention to restart talks

Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides has urged for an immediate UN bid to sound out prospects of quickly restarting deadlocked talks to reunify divided Cyprus.

Christodoulides welcomed UN chief Antonio Guterres’ decision to task an official with figuring out whether conditions are again ripe for another round of UN-backed peace negotiations.

Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci has also welcomed the move but disagrees on where the talks should resume after breaking at the Conference for Cyprus in Switzerland last July.

However, it’s unclear whether Guterres will dispatch a representative for contacts in the region before or after Turkey’s June 24 election.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric reminded reporters that when the July talks collapsed “the secretary-general encouraged all parties to reflect in order to determine whether the conditions would mature again for a meaningful process in the future.”

Asked for the U.N. response to the latest moves by the Greek and Turkish Cypriots, Dujarric said: “We are in contact with the parties to determine a way to seek the outcomes of their reflection and on the views of their way forward.”