UN Personal Envoy on Cyprus, María Ángela Holguín will meet with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara this Friday, according to ANKA News Agency.
ANKA reports that Holguín will hold a series of diplomatic consultations in the Turkish capital ahead of UN chief Antonio Guterres’ visit to Cyprus next Monday.
The meeting with Fidan is expected to focus on the recent diplomatic activity surrounding the Cyprus issue, the positions of the parties and the subjects likely to be addressed during Guterres’ meetings on the island.
It will come on the back of Holguín’s first meeting with newly designated EU Special Representative for Cyprus Raffaele Fitto in Brussels on Wednesday.
EU-Ankara
Earlier this month, the Presidents of the European Council and Commission, Antonio Costa and Ursula von der Leyen, met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara to discuss EU-Turkey relations, regional developments and the Cyprus issue.
The government has invested much hope in its effort to promote a parallel track of progress between EU-Turkey relations on the one hand, and developments in the Cyprus peace effort.
Following her trips to Brussels and Ankara, Holguín will return to Cyprus ahead of Guterres’ first – and probably last – visit to the island as UN Secretary-General.
Guterres in Cyprus
The UN chief will meet with the two leaders separately on 28 July, before visiting the Committee on Missing Persons in the UN Protected Area (UNPA) in Nicosia. He will also meet with civil society and members of the Technical Committees in the afternoon, followed by a dinner with the two leaders at the residence of the UN Special Representative Khassim Diagne at the old Nicosia airport.
The next day, on 29 July, Guterres will meet with both leaders at the UN Good Offices compound in the UNPA before holding a press conference and departing the island.
Broader meeting of 5+1
According to information obtained by Politis, Guterres is seeking to establish a shared understanding of the next steps in the process and make clear to both sides that the international community expects concrete progress rather than dialogue without prospects for results.
The effort to convene a 5+1 meeting with the two leaders and guarantor powers has been pushed back to give time to establish this common understanding on the way forward, with reports suggesting that if all goes well, the 5+1 will take place in September.
