Our View: One leader playing up UN dinner while the other is playing it down

The dinner date with the UN secretary-general has been set. President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar will be having a trilateral dinner in New York with Antonio Guterres on October 15, as any other type of meeting had been vetoed by Tatar. Attempts to set up a meeting of the three in August, without dinner being offered, was rejected by Tatar for the same reasons that are no longer an obstacle.

Disagreements emerged from the moment the date had been set. Tatar’s office issued a statement, saying there would be “no agenda” at the dinner and that “the two leaders will exchange views in a social setting”. New York seems a very long way to go for an informal chat in a social setting when this could be done on the island with minimal travel time. Admittedly, Guterres would not be hosting a dinner in Nicosia, but his personal envoy, Maria Angela Holguin, could have done so. She had tried when she was here but was snubbed by Tatar on the suspicion that she may have wanted to talk business.

Christodoulides wasted little time in countering Tatar’s assertion about the nature of the dinner meeting. It would not be an “open agenda” meeting he said on Thursday. “The discussion will focus solely on determining if there are prospects for resuming talks, and I consider the secretary-general’s initiative to be highly significant,” he said, stressing that “we will attend the meeting with full seriousness and do everything possible to achieve positive results.” This is a more realistic take on the dinner, even if nothing eventually comes of it.

One leader is playing up the dinner while the other is playing it down, which should come as no surprise given the rhetoric that has preceded it. Christodoulides wants the talks to resume from where they left off in Crans-Montana, while Tatar wants a completely different settlement from the one that was being discussed seven years ago. Under the circumstances he is quite right to say that there is no common ground, given that Christodoulides has emphatically stated he would not discuss anything other than a bizonal, bicommunal federation. 

Nevertheless Christodoulides said he was “cautiously optimistic” and nursed the expectation that the meeting would be a “significant step for the resumption of talks”. It is indicative of his general approach that he treats the resumption of talks as an end in itself, avoiding talk of an actual settlement other than to repeat that the status quo was unsustainable. Is he under the impression there is a chance in a million that a resumption of talks would mean a return to the old-style negotiations that went on for years without achieving any result?

This is as unrealistic as Tatar thinking that his conditions would be satisfied before talks began – that he would be given everything he is demanding before he sits at the negotiating table. Of course, it is plausible that his conditions will be dropped so long as Christodoulides agrees to discuss a two-state solution, which was also championed by president Tayyip Erdogan in his speech at last month’s UN General Assembly. The five hours of meetings the Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel had with Erdogan and other members of the government in Ankara on Wednesday, regarding the bolstering of the north’s economy and infrastructure, would indicate Turkey remains committed to the two-state solution.

If this is the line that will be adopted by Tatar at the dinner, which he will attend on Turkey’s orders, Christodoulides will have no choice but to walk away. But would Guterres have invited the two leaders without having sounded out Ankara about what he planned to propose as a way forward? He would not have arranged the dinner without having secured a positive response from Ankara about the agenda, which cannot be open as Tatar has maintained. A change of stance, or perhaps a show of some flexibility by Ankara is most probably the reason Tatar accepted the UNSG’s invitation, which will neither be informal nor of a social nature. Guterres is a very busy man who will not be wasting his precious time meeting Tatar and Christodoulides if there was no purpose to the meeting. This will not be a dinner for exchanging pleasantries or for Guterres to enjoy Tatar’s and Christodoulides’ witty repartee.