Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar and Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades on Tuesday evening, attended a reception given by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for the delegations who attended the Geneva Conference, Yeniduzen reports.
Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar was accompanied by Foreign Minister Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu and Special Representative Ergün Olgun.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Greek Foreign Minister Nicos Dendias and British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab, who were in Geneva as representatives of the guarantor countries, also attended the reception.
Earlier on in the day, the two Cypriot community leaders had separate informal meetings with UNSG Antonio Guterres.
According to Tatar’s spokesperson Berna Çelik Doğruyol, the meeting, which lasted for an hour and a half, took place in a friendly and constructive atmosphere.
She said the following:
“Our President thanked his counterpart for organising the 5 + UN unofficial meeting in search of common ground between the two sides to reach a consensus on the Cyprus issue, which has been going on unsuccessfully for more than half a century.
“Our President stated that he agrees with Guterres’s view that “this time it must be different”. Emphasising that “a different result cannot be achieved by doing the same thing”, our President also stated that the negotiations on federal ground, which have been negotiated for many years and have not been successful, serve no purpose other than maintaining the status quo, which was designed against the Turkish Cypriots and deemed “unacceptable”.
“ Under these conditions, he explained that the vision of reconciliation, based on the cooperation of the two States based on sovereign equality and equal international status, is a forward-looking and realistic compromise basis that changes the rules of the game in a positive way.”
