Press Releases

The President of the Republic, Mr Nicos Anastasiades, received today, at the Presidential Palace, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Cyprus, Ms Elizabeth Spehar.

After the meeting, Ms Spehar told reporters that “I came here this morning to see his excellency ahead of his upcoming trips and especially to thank him and his government for all of the cooperation and support over the last five plus years that I have been here on the island. 

I will also be seeing Mr Tatar early next week. I also wanted to say that I have been very impressed by the Cypriots, by their perseverance and by their desire for peace and in particular there are a lot of people on this island on both sides that continue to work for peace, sometimes they are very courageous and it is important what they are doing and what they are saying. They want to see a better future for this island, for everyone and I hope that they will continue because it is very important to get more people involved in the peace process.

The Secretary-General said ‘I will not give up’. I hope that the Cypriots also will not give up and I want to thank everyone that I have worked with all of these years and I have been very embraced by the island, I feel, overall all of this time and it has been a marvelous experience.

And whatever happens in the future I wish all the best for this island and I await the day of the solution of the Cyprus problem. I hope it will come much sooner rather than later. I assure you that I will always have a very soft spot in my heart for Cyprus”.

RM/EH/ECHR