The visit to Cyprus by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is not simply another protocol stop on the Cyprus problem’s seemingly endless journey. It is the first visit to the island by a United Nations Secretary-General in sixteen years, and it comes at a moment that could prove decisive. Not because the positions of the two sides have somehow changed overnight, but because, for the first time since Crans-Montana, there is a prospect of a new multilateral conference aimed at bringing the negotiating process to a conclusion, rather than merely going through it all over again.
It is easy to be swept along by the familiar pessimism surrounding the Cyprus problem. For half a century, we have learnt to view every initiative with suspicion and every new effort as the prelude to yet another failure. This time, however, there is one crucial difference. We are not returning to the negotiating table to start from scratch. We are returning having already covered almost the entire distance.
At Crans-Montana in the summer of two thousand seventeen, the negotiations did not collapse because there was no basis for a settlement. On the contrary, after decades of talks, an unprecedented range of common ground had been established across almost all the main chapters: governance, property, territory, the economy and the European Union. The Guterres framework identified the few remaining differences, particularly those concerning security and guarantees. We were not at the starting line. We were, quite literally, one mile from the finish.
Nine years have passed since then. New obstacles have emerged. The status quo has become further entrenched. Those who present partition as supposed “realism” have grown louder. New economic and political interests have emerged and now thrive on the country’s continued division. Every passing year makes a settlement more difficult. But none of this cancels what has already been agreed or erases the immense diplomatic capital already deposited in the United Nations’ files.
The real question, therefore, is not whether there is a path towards a settlement. The path exists. The real question is whether the political will still exists to travel the final mile.
The present moment has another distinctive feature. The Turkey of two thousand twenty-six is not the Turkey of two thousand seventeen. Ankara is seeking to revive its relations with the European Union. It needs an upgrade of the Customs Union, wants to participate in European defence planning, is searching for economic and investment opportunities, and knows that without meaningful progress on the Cyprus problem, EU-Turkey relations are unlikely to deepen in any meaningful way.
This does not mean that Turkey has abandoned its strategic objectives. It does mean, however, that Europe now has greater leverage than it did a few years ago. And, as an EU member state, the Republic of Cyprus now has greater leverage too. Our EU membership must not be viewed merely as a licence to exercise a veto, or as a mechanism for preserving the deadlock. It must serve as a catalyst for a settlement that reunites our country within the European legal and political order.
This is where Nicosia bears its greatest responsibility. The Republic of Cyprus is not the state of the Greek Cypriots alone. It is the internationally recognised state of all Cypriots. Turkish Cypriots are not a foreign people. They are our fellow citizens. They are one of the two constituent communities of the same Republic and, through it, citizens of the European Union. If the Greek Cypriot leadership genuinely seeks reunification, it must also look at the issue through the eyes of those who have spent decades cut off from the benefits of European membership.
This is not a concession. It is political maturity. The nationalist cries that brand every attempt at compromise as betrayal have always been the surest allies of stagnation. History has shown that those who invested in the absence of a settlement never placed Cyprus in a stronger position. On the contrary, every missed opportunity only entrenched the consequences of the occupation further.
An entire country cannot continue planning its future around a status quo that primarily serves a small elite of economic, political and business interests. Division has created systems of power, patronage and financial privilege that flourish precisely because Cyprus remains cut in two. But the interests of the few cannot be allowed to continue determining the future of the many.
Today’s geopolitical reality makes the need for a settlement more urgent still. The Eastern Mediterranean is being reshaped. Energy projects, new security balances, relations between Europe and Turkey, and developments in the Middle East are creating an entirely different landscape from the one we knew a decade ago. Cyprus cannot afford to remain a passive observer. It must take part in these developments as a united European state, not as Europe’s last divided country.
António Guterres is coming to Nicosia to determine whether the two sides are ready to travel that final stretch. He is not coming to impose a settlement. Nor could he. What he can do is create the conditions for a new five-party conference in Geneva to become more than another exercise in diplomatic management — to become a genuine attempt to complete a process left unfinished nine years ago.
The greatest responsibility, however, lies neither with the Secretary-General nor with foreign mediators. It lies with us. Fifty-two years after the invasion, perhaps the time has come to stop counting only what we have lost and begin considering what we still stand to gain. To see Turkish Cypriots not as a negotiating problem, but as fellow citizens with whom we share a shared European homeland. To stop treating division as the natural order of things. And to find the political courage to complete a journey that began decades ago.
Because no country is reunited by outsiders. It is reunited when its own people decide that tomorrow is worth more than the certainties of yesterday.
Source: THE LAST MILE OF HISTORY
