Turkish foreign minister to take part in informal meeting on Cyprus issue in Geneva

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will participate in an informal meeting on Cyprus with the leaders of the divided island and guarantor powers at the UN Office in Geneva on Sunday, according to Turkish diplomatic resources.

The meeting is expected to discuss views on the Cyprus issue for the upcoming period, and is not meant to be a "continuation of past negotiation processes" or the "beginning of a new negotiation process."

The meeting, to be hosted by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, will be attended by Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus President Ersin Tatar, Greek Cypriot administration leader Nikos Christodoulides, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis, and UK's State Minister for Europe, North America and Overseas Territories in the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Stephen Doughty.

Fidan had most recently visited the TRNC on Jan. 8-9, where he was received by TRNC President Tatar and Prime Minister Ünal Üstel.

In a joint news conference with TRNC President Tatar, Fidan highlighted that Türkiye would continue to strengthen its solidarity and cooperation with the TRNC in all areas.

He said Türkiye also supports a two-state solution on the island, and expressed its readiness to make a constructive contribution to this solution.

Last October, Guterres hosted an informal dinner with Tatar and Christodoulides in New York.

A decision was made to hold an expanded-format informal meeting, hosted by the UN chief, with the two leaders, the foreign ministers of the "motherlands," and lower-level officials from the UK as the third guarantor state.

- 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 EU in 2004, the same year Greek Cypriots single-handedly blocked a UN plan to end the longstanding dispute.