European External Action Service spokesman Peter Stano welcomed Thursday 29 April, the announcement earlier in the day by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the participants in the Cyprus talks had agreed on another meeting in the 5+1 format (representatives of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities on the island, the guarantors, Greece, Turkey and the UK, plus the UN).
Mr Stano also reiterated the EU’s support for the UN’s efforts to create the conditions for a resumption of negotiations on the Cyprus conflict.
At the end of three days of meetings in Geneva in the 5+1 format (see EUROPE 12666/35), the UN Secretary General announced that the parties would meet again, “probably (in) 2 or 3 months”.
Acknowledging that in the first round of meetings, the parties had not yet “found sufficient common ground to allow the resumption of formal negotiations on the settlement of the Cyprus problem”, Mr Guterres explained that the parties had been able to agree that he would convene “another 5+1 meeting in the near future, again with the aim of moving towards common ground for the start of formal negotiations”.
“We are determined to do everything in our power to move this dialogue forward and to ensure that this dialogue, at some point, can lead to positive results”, he added. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)