On Friday 6 January the European Commission announced that its president, Jean-Claude Juncker, will participate in the Geneva conference (Switzerland) on the reunification of Cyprus.
Juncker will travel to Cyprus, but his role at the conference is still not known. Commission spokesperson Margaritis Schinas was unable to give more details on this point on Friday. The conference is due to bring together the guarantor countries – Greece, Turkey and the UK – as well as the United Nations Security Council and the EU. The new UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, is also expected to attend. The meeting could last several days.
The conference will follow up on a meeting which took place from Monday 9 to Wednesday 11 January between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders Nicos Anastasiades and Mustafa Akinci. According to the UN special envoy for Cyprus, Espen Barth Eide, the main issues outstanding focus on security and the guarantees. On 11 January, the two leaders are expected to discuss for the first time their respective cards for resolving the difficult issue of territorial exchanges.
While the Cypriot parties had wanted an agreement before the end of 2016, the discussions have in the end taken longer than hoped. However, Eide remains optimistic. "We go there [to Geneva] with the ambition of solving it [the Cypriot issue] now, and then we will see how things develop when we are there", he said during a visit to Athens on 4 January, while recognising that this would not be easy. "I think that the possibilities [for a solution] are higher than they ever were", he added.
"While it will be difficult, I don’t think it has ever looked better than it does right now", he said. However, although the other actors involved (apart from the Greek and Turkish Cypriots) "may have their differences on many issues", "they all seem to think that a solution to the Cyprus problem is better for whatever broader agendas they have than the opposite of a solution", Eide said. "And I think that the choice now is very much about using this opportunity or losing it", he added. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)