Cyprus talks fail again as both sides fails to reach agreement

Talks aimed at reunifying the ethnically divided Cyprus island in Crans-Montana Switzerland, have collapsed amid Turkey's insistence on retaining its troops on the island and to maintain the right to militarily intervention.

After ten days of intensive negotiations between leaders and delegates from both communities which ended with a 15 hours non-stop negotiations in the presence of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday night, the Cyprus Conference ended with both sides failing to agree on a deal.

According to reports, negotiators also failed to agree on how much territory would make up the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot zones in an envisioned federation.

I'm very sorry to tell you that despite the very strong commitment and engagement of all the delegations and different parties ... the conference on Cyprus was closed without an agreement being reached, said the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told a news conference, early Friday morning.

Guterres who had flown in on Thursday to press Greek and Turkish Cypriots to seal a deal in reuniting the island expressed his deep gratitude to the leaders of the two communities, the EU, Greece, Turkey and the UN team led by Special Adviser Espen Barth Eide, and also wish all the Cypriots north and south” the best.

Though he did not elaborate on what exactly had caused the talks to collapse, but said there was still a wide gap between the two delegations on a number of issues saying that “I would not isolate a particular issue.” 

According to Guterres, Eide had “done everything possible” to bring closer the positions of the different delegations but “Unfortunately an agreement was not possible and the conference was closed without being able to find a solution to this long-lasting problem,” he added.

The UN chief said the conference was closed “but that does not mean that other initiatives cannot be developed in order to address the Cyprus problem but this conference was closed, unfortunately without results”.

He noted that the United Nations role was that of a facilitator and will always be at the disposal of the parties, should they reach a point where they wanted to try again for a settlement “if that would be the case”.

Cyprus government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said the failed talk wasn't "the end of the road" for peace efforts.

The existing, unacceptable situation can't be Cyprus' future and the president will redouble his efforts, Christodoulides said.

Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the talks' failure was due to the Greek and Greek Cypriot insistence for Ankara to pulls out all of its troops from the island and for military intervention rights to be abolished adding that it was impossible to reach a settlement within the parameters of the UN’s Good Offices Mission and there was “No use in insisting on them”.

For Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot side it is not acceptable for troops to be withdrawn, he told reporters.

In a series of tweets after the end of talks, Cavusoglu said it was important to maintain and increase stability on island and in region.

We will continue efforts for a settlement within different parameters,” he said. Crans-Montana, he added had “unfortunately not produced any results”. “Turkey was very constructive but no agreement could be reached.

Efforts to reunite the Mediterranean island have failed since the island was invaded by Turkey in 1974 which was triggered by a coup by Greek Cypriots seeking union with Greece.