Turkish Cypriot president to meet Greek Cypriot leader at year-end UN reception

By Mehmet Kemal Firik

LEFKOSA, TRNC (AA) - Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) President Ersin Tatar will meet Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Anastasiades on Wednesday in the border Green Zone, at the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus’ (UNFICYP) year-end reception.

The social event, to be held at the Ledra Palace Hotel, will also be attended by diplomats, UN officials, and representatives of non-governmental organizations, a UN source said on condition of anonymity.

Since taking office in 2020, Tatar has met four times with Anastasiades.

While the leaders met twice in the island’s buffer zone, the other meetings were held in Geneva and New York as part of UN Cyprus talks.

- Decades-long dispute

Cyprus has been mired in a decades-long dispute between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, despite a series of diplomatic efforts by the UN to achieve a comprehensive settlement.

Ethnic attacks starting in the early 1960s forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety.

In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at Greece's annexation of the island led to Türkiye's military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence. As a result, the TRNC was founded in 1983.

It has seen an on-and-off peace process in recent years, including a failed 2017 initiative in Switzerland under the auspices of guarantor countries Türkiye, Greece and the UK.

The Greek Cypriot administration entered the European Union in 2004, the same year that Greek Cypriots thwarted a UN plan to end the longstanding dispute.