In Cyprus, UN chief meets rival leaders, mulls prospects for talks

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres arrived in Cyprus overnight and began separate meetings with the island's rival leaders on Tuesday to weigh the prospect of fresh talks nine years after the peace process collapsed.

Guterres's is the first visit to the divided Mediterranean island by a UN secretary-general since that of his predecessor Ban Ki-moon in 2010.

"I have just landed in Cyprus to express my commitment to support for Cypriot communities in the search for a comprehensive & sustainable settlement of the Cyprus issue," he said on his official X account after landing.

"The UN cannot impose peace. Only Cypriots, through their leaders, can build it."

Guterres is scheduled to hold separate talks on either side of the ceasefire line with President Nikos Christodoulides of the Republic of Cyprus and his counterpart from the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), Tufan Erhurman, who was elected in October.

He is then to spend several hours meeting civil society and other groups before hosting both leaders for a joint dinner ahead of a trilateral meeting on Wednesday.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Ankara occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-engineered Greek Cypriot coup seeking union with Greece.

Today it comprises the TRNC, which is only recognised by Ankara, and the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus, an EU member that controls the island's majority Greek Cypriot south.

Decades of UN-backed talks have failed to reunify the island with the last major round of peace talks collapsed in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, in July 2017.

The two rival leaders held their first meeting in December when they signalled a fresh commitment to reviving the long-stalled peace process in the presence of Guterres' envoy Maria Angela Holguin, who held talks with them both on Monday ahead of Guterres' arrival.