A top US diplomat pledged on Wednesday before the US Senate that he will work towards maintaining Unficyp’s peacekeeping force in Cyprus.
Jonathan Cohen, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs is vying for the seat of deputy representative of the US to the UN and is a nominee for the position.
“I commit to working to preserve the mission,” Cohen said during a hearing in the US Senate foreign relations committee, describing Unficyp as a “critical mission”, according to the Cyprus News Agency.
“It separates powers which have been at war since 1964. It is a mission as old as I am.
“It is a challenging mission but a special mission. It is a mission that the Greek Cypriots and the Greeks find it extremely important,” Cohen said responding to questions by Senator Robert Menendez.
“Turkish Cypriots and Turks find it less so (important) and so, in my option it is a vital element to maintain peace on the island.”
The fate of Unficyp’s presence on the island remains under question as US President Donald Trump seeks to scale down operations across the world. Quarters inside the UN are reportedly considering either a full-on closing down of Unficyp or at the least a scaling down.
Menendez stipulated that in the past, the US representative to the UN would often create difficulties for Cyprus when it came to renewing Unficyp’s mandate in relation to progress on negotiations.
According to CNA, the Senator said this approach “in my opinion, punishes Cyprus because Turkey is an occupying power and wants peacekeepers to go”.
Cohen stipulated that “we may be seeing the sparks of a new opening to work toward a political solution” after developments in recent weeks.
It is believed he was referring to a dinner between President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci on April 16.
Since then, Akinci has called for a resumption of the talks based on the Guterres framework presented in Crans-Montana on June 30 last year.
Meanwhile, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Bintou Keita arrived in Cyprus on Wednesday for a three-day visit.
The purpose of the visit is to review the UN Peacekeeping force in Cyprus (Unficyp) and the ongoing progress on the implementation of the recommendations of the Security Council-mandated strategic review of the mission.
UN spokesman Aleem Siddique told CNA that Keita was received by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Elizabeth Spehar, and Unficyp’s force commander, Major General Mohammad Humayun Kabir.
During her three-day visit she will meet Unficyp peacekeepers as well as stakeholders on both sides of the island, representatives of the diplomatic community and civil society, Siddique said.
A recent report by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recommended scaling down military personnel to 802.
Its current strength is 1,102 total (including uniformed and civilian personnel) to cover the 180 km-long buffer zone and is seen as ‘just enough’ to fulfil its mandate.
Unficyp, set up in 1964, is one of the longest-running UN peacekeeping missions.
