Spehar to hold contacts on Cyprus problem at UN HQ

UN Special Representative on Cyprus Elisabeth Spehar will inform Secretary-general Antonio Guterres on the Cyprus problem’s current situation this week in New York.

She is set to outline the current standing of the Cyprus issue at the UNHQ, following her contacts with President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci this past week.

However, Spehar’s visit was not the original plan of the UN, as the Secretary-general had been planning to send the former Assistant UN Secretary-general for Peacekeeping Missions, Jean-Marie Guehenno, to Cyprus to evaluate the intentions of the two leaders to restart the discussions.

According to the Cyprus News Agency this was not possible as the Turkish Cypriot side and Turkey rejected Guehenno’s visit, citing that they cannot accept EU citizens as representatives of the UN. Guehenno is French.

Guehenno was the head of the think-tank International Crisis Group from September 2014 to December 2017.

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.