United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attends (left) a meeting with Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides at the Presidential Palace in Nicosia, Cyprus, on Tuesday, July 28, 2026. [Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters/Pool]
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres ended his visit to the divided island of Cyprus Wednesday by obtaining the agreement of both sides, the Republic of Cyprus and the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, to continue talks toward resolving the division.
But there will be no formal talks yet. Instead, an informal meeting including the two Cypriot sides and the three “guarantor powers,” that is Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom, will take place in New York City in September, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. The meeting, Guterres said Wednesday, will ascertain whether there is a basis for more formal talks.
Guterres, who is making a last attempt to move the needle on the stalled negotiations before his term ends at the end of the year, was said to have hoped for a more official “5+1” meeting in Switzerland, with the five participants mentioned, plus the European Union, which has expressed its intention to take a more active role. He had even floated late July as a possible date, before his own trip to Cyprus was delayed.
