“The Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General, former Colombian Foreign Minister Ms. Holguin, was travelling to the island, she was talking to the parties, only to find that the parties are very far apart from the compromised solution that maybe found” President of the Security Council for July and Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation, Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said, during the Press Briefing at UNHQ in New York.
Speaking at a UN press briefing and asked by the Cyprus News Agency (CNA), Nebenzia said that “it is unfortunate, but the last opportunity we had was in 2017 in Crans-Montana, which unfortunately was lost and since then there has been no visible, tangible progress in the Cyprus negotiations”
Also, he added that the UN security council is seeing the hardening of the positions of some of the plans of both sides.
“Now there is the issue of extending the mandate of Ms. Holguin, but this is absolutely the prerogative of the Secretary General, because she is his Personal Envoy. She is not the envoy of the Security Council, nor of the Special Representative for Cyprus. We shall see. In fact, it is up to him (Secretary General) to make the decision,” the Russian diplomat said, while as for the regular briefing of Colin Stewart by UNFICYP, he said, “it will be on developments on the ground, on the issues he is facing”.
“I don’t expect anything special from this briefing,” he added.
( Source: CNA, Cyprus Mail)
