21st century in Cyprus

The UN secretary-general's special envoy for Cyprus, Angela Holguin Cuellar, is expected to visit the island on Tuesday for a new round of contacts.

This will be her third mission to Cyprus since she assumed office; the UN has announced she will stay until the 14th of May.

Northern Cyprus will not sit at any negotiating table unless their sovereignty and equal status is recognized, Turkish Cypriot President Ersin Tatar has told AFP.

The Cyprus problem and the prospect of resuming reunification talks was one of the issues that dominated Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis' meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York on Monday.

A senior U.N. envoy with a special task on reporting about whether there is ground for a new initiative to resolve the decades-old Cyprus problem has held talks with senior Turkish officials in Ankara, including Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

The obstacles to rekindling talks on the Cyprus issue, let alone to reaching a mutually acceptable settlement, were the focus of a meeting in Athens on Tuesday between María Ángela Holguín Cuellar, the UN chief's new personal envoy for Cyprus, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis.

Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis met on Tuesday with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' new personal envoy for Cyprus, Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar.

The meeting in Athens was the first between the two officials since Cuellar was appointed to the post in a bid to restart stalled talks on the Cyprus issue.

The UN Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus for a year and urged all parties including rival Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots to take steps "to de-escalate tensions in and around the buffer zone" dividing the Mediterranean island.

Cyprus announced a series of gestures to support estranged Turkish Cypriots on Friday, days before the visit of a United Nations envoy who will assess prospects for the resumption of long-stalled peace talks.

Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler hailed the good state of relations with Greece on Wednesday, expressing Ankara's desire for peace, but also noting that it will not back down on the Cyprus issue.

At a time of apparent mobility on the Cyprus issue despite Ankara's hard line, Athens and Nicosia reaffirmed their common stance during the meeting on Monday between visiting Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.