Our View: President’s actions contradict the Cyprob rhetoric

Soon after he was elected, President Nikos Christodoulides embarked on a campaign, supposedly aimed at securing a resumption of Cyprus talks because, as he never tired telling us, the status quo was unsustainable. Almost three years later, the superficiality of this supposed commitment to the resumption of talks that was never once tested by the inflexible Ersin Tatar, is looking unsustainable. Looked at closely, the president’s policy on the Cyprus problem has always been about effect and never about result.     

First, he pursued what he had promised during the election campaign – greater involvement of the EU in the peace process. He argued that the EU must appoint its own envoy to the talks, preferably a political personality, who would be actively involved in the process. This was a non-starter as the Turkish side vetoed the idea, but there was a face-saving solution for Christodoulides, as in May 2025 former EU commissioner Johannes Hahn was eventually appointed EU special envoy, but his role has been that of observer.

His second initiative was to secure the appointment of a special envoy by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. His persistence was admirable and eventually yielded a result. A former foreign minister of Colombia, Maria Angela Holguin, was appointed personal envoy in January 2024 and stepped down when her six-month mandate expired. She had failed to secure the engagement of the two leaders in any process because of the conditions Tatar had set. She returned to Cyprus to assist the process after the election of Tufan Erhurman last October but has had no success so far. Her meeting with the two leaders on Wednesday confirmed the stalemate.

In the meantime, the president also persuaded to the European Commission to link the Cyprus problem to EU-Turkey relations making progress in the latter dependent on movement in the former. He made a big song and dance about this, which has more to do with the foreign ministry’s objective of punishing Turkey for the continuing occupation than encouraging it to engage in a peace process. We do not know whether the EU-Turkey relations have been affected by this link, but we do know that it has not brought the resumption of Cyprus talks – meant to be president’s priority – any closer.

There had been hopes after Erhurman’s election in October that there could be a breakthrough, given his support for a federal settlement and the abandonment of Tatar’s conditions for separate sovereignty. Holguin was sent back to Cyprus but her second visit last week, despite separate and joint meetings with the leaders, did not get anywhere. Christodoulides had gone to Wednesday’s meeting with Erhurman with five new proposals that seemed designed to prevent the resumption of talks. His proposals included the reconfirmation of the basis for a settlement and the preparation by the UN of a document with all past convergences, opening the door for revisiting and renegotiating all convergences, including political equality.

Does this support the narrative that Christodoulides desperately wants a resumption of the talks? It does not.

It shows a man who does not want to engage in substantive negotiations but would like the talks to become lost in disagreements about the procedure. Not to mention that his five proposals contradict his own rhetoric about the resumption of talks from the point they had stopped at Crans-Montana. He now wants the convergences to be negotiated again, before they are included in the new UN document!

This does not show a president that is sincerely committed to the resumption of talks. It makes a mockery of his oft-repeated assertion that he is ready to return to the talks tomorrow, when his five proposals are designed to prevent the resumption of talks in the foreseeable future, in the highly unlikely event the Turkish side took the bait. The president could not even agree to the opening of new crossings, turning this into a zero sum game instead of showing a modicum of goodwill, if only to support his claim that he is committed to the resumption of talks. On Wednesday he said he would discuss the opening of new crossings when all his other proposals were accepted and there was an enlarged meeting.

This is not the behaviour of someone who wants to show he is sincerely committed to a resumption of talks. The actions contradict the rhetoric.