A Chronology: A timeline of UN’s Cyprus diplomacy

This is one of a series of articles from our new feature ‘Background briefing: The Divided Island‘. It is a comprehensive interactive information guide on the Cyprus problem which we are publishing at this critical moment in the settlement negotiations. There is a menu bar to the full package to the right of this article. Just click on any of the items.

Some 25 UN special envoys and six secretary-generals have been involved in efforts to resolve the Cyprus problem over a period of more than half a century.

You can read a lively Cyprus Mail account about the work of these ‘facilitators’ and who they were under the title:

Other diplomats stationed in Cyprus may not have been directly involved in the negotiations but they also have had tales to tell though not many have put pen to paper like former Swedish Ambassador Ingemar Lindahl who published his account in early 2019 titled‘

Below is a chronological list of the of the names and nationalities of UN secretary-generals’ special representatives — also known as Unficyp chiefs of mission — and special advisers. Their terms may overlap in some instances.

  • Sakari Tuomioia, Finland
  • Galo Plaza Lasso, Ecuador
  • Carlos Bernardes, Brazil
  • Pier P Spinelli, Italy
  • Bibiano Osorio-Tafall, Spain
  • Luis Weckmann-Munoz, Mexico
  • Javier Perez de Cuellar, Peru
  • Remy Gorge, Switzerland
  • Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, El Salvador
  • Hugo Gobbi, Argentina
  • James Holger, Chile
  • Oscar Camilion, Argentina
  • Joe Clark, Canada
  • Gustave Feissel, US
  • Han Sung-Joo, Korea
  • Diego Cordovez, Ecuador
  • Dame Ann Hercus, New Zealand
  • James Holger, Chile (second term)
  • Alvaro de Soto, Peru
  • Zbigniew Wlosowicz, Poland
  • Michael Moller, Denmark
  • Elizabeth Spehar, Canada
  • Taye-Brook Zerihoun, Ethiopia
  • Alexander Downer, Australia
  • Lisa Buttenheim, US
  • Elizabeth Spehar, Canada
  • 2018-2021 Jane Holl Lute US
  • 2021- Colin Stewart Canada
  • 2024-Maria Angela Holguin Colombia

Not all UN envoys over the years were popular and some were even less popular than others.

Below is a list of the UN Secretaries-General who held office since the UN’s peacekeeping force, Unficyp, was established in March 1964.

  • U Thant, Burma
  • Kurt Waldheim, Austria
  • Javier Perez de Cuellar, Peru
  • Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Egypt
  • Kofi Annan, Ghana
  • Ban Ki-moon, South Korea
  • Antonio Guterres, Portugal

Keep up with the UNSG’s Good Offices Missions and all his reports on Cyprus here: https://uncyprustalks.unmissions.org/

On a local level, learn more about Unficyp here: https://unficyp.unmissions.org/

 

 

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.