UN chief: No common ground yet to move ahead on Cyprus issue

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday said there is "no common ground yet" to resume formal negotiations on a settlement for the decades old-Cyprus problem.

Guterres was speaking at a news conference in Geneva after three days of informal talks looking to move forward on the Cyprus issue, and said he will convene another round of 5+1 talks to move the process forward.

"We have been able to agree that I will convene in the near future another meeting of the 5+1, again with the objective to move in the direction of reaching common ground to allow for formal negotiations to start," noted the UN chief.

"We are determined to do everything we can to make this dialogue move on," said Guterres.

He noted that the position expressed by Turkish Cypriots is that a solution should be based on two states.

Guterres said the position expressed Wednesday by the Turkish Cypriot president was that "the many efforts made to solve the Cyprus issue over the years have failed, including the most recent attempt made in Crans Montana," in 2017.

"They believe that efforts to negotiate the bi-zonal or bi-communal federation have been exhausted."

"The solution in their view should be based on two states cooperating with each other.

"The position expressed yesterday by the Greek Cypriot delegation was that negotiations should resume from where they left off in Crans Montana."

According to the Greek Cypriot administration, the negotiations "should aim to achieve a settlement based on a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation with political equality on the basis of relevant UN Security Council resolutions," added Guterres.