Press Releases

The President of the Republic, Mr Nicos Anastasiades, received today, at the Presidential Palace, the UN SG’s Special Representative in Cyprus, Ms Elisabeth Spehar. 

After the meeting, Ms Spehar told reporters, among other things, that “it was very good to see Mr Anastasiades and his colleagues. We had a good and useful meeting.

This is the regular meeting that I do before I go to the Security Council to present the reports of the Secretary-General.

The Security Council will be on the 21^st of July for Cyprus so I will be leaving the island over the weekend so I can speak with some of the UN officials in Washington, then I will be in New York. I will also brief the troop contributing countries that provide the troops and police officers to UNFICYP. I was also recently in Moscow to talk with Russian officials so I have been in touch with the five Permanent Members of the Security Council and I look forward to some very important and good meetings in New York also with my senior colleagues in the UN Secretariat.

I would also like to express my sincere condolences to everyone, to all Cypriots and particularly to those affected, for the terrible wildfires that we saw this weekend. It was very shocking to see all of the devastation and very sad and on behalf of the UN I really express my condolences for the loss of life particularly, but also for the loss of property and for the losses in terms of Cyprus’ beautiful forest lands.

I understand that things are now much better under control but to recover from this tragedy I know it will be very-very difficult.

The UN stands in solidarity with Cyprus and if we can assist in any way we shall do so.”

Asked if the Cyprus problem is not yet solved due also to the policy of equal distances between the occupation power and the Republic of Cyprus, Ms Spehar said that “it is really up to the parties to solve the Cyprus problem and we are here to assist.” 

RM/EH/SCH