UN Secretary-General’s envoy Olguín cancels Cyprus visit due to illness

Personal envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Cyprus María Ángela Holguín has cancelled her trip to the island, scheduled for 10 September. The reason is her health: doctors advised her not to fly.

Holguín was originally expected in Cyprus on 7 September. She was due to attend the next meeting between Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhürman, scheduled for 9 September, and remain on the island until the next round on 16 September. Because of her illness, her arrival had already been postponed to 10 September; it has now been cancelled altogether.

This would have been Holguín’s first trip to Cyprus since the visit by UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the end of July. The envoy now hopes to meet both leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

On Saturday, Christodoulides said he hoped a document recording areas where the parties’ positions had converged on the Cyprus settlement would be prepared by Holguín’s next visit. According to him, the document should be presented to both sides and the guarantor countries. “We hope this document will be ready,” the president said, calling it “a very good way to resume negotiations.”

He explained that once the areas of convergence had been agreed, it would become clear where differences remained, and negotiations could resume from those points. First, he said, it was necessary to preserve the progress already made in the talks and convene an expanded conference, at which the resumption of negotiations would be announced. A new meeting with Erhürman next week, Christodoulides added, should help move the process forward.