Cypriots must learn to live together on the island again, says Stewart
If we hope for a settlement to the Cyprus issue, Cypriots must learn to live together on the island again, said the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Deputy Special Adviser on Cyprus Colin Stewart, on Thursday in his speech at the 5th Cyprus Forum in Nicosia.
He also described as “encouraging” the news that Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot leaders have reached an agreement with Secretary-General Guterres to meet informally later this month in New York.
According to Stewart, for 60 years, UNFICYP has been trying to keep the peace in Cyprus, with 150,000 troops and police from 44 countries having joined this effort, and 187 peacekeepers having given their lives on this island in the cause of peace, contributing to the freedom from daily violence that Cypriots have enjoyed for the last 50 years, while successive Secretaries-General have devoted their good offices to helping Cypriot leaders solve the Cyprus Issue.
Sixty years later, it feels very much like we are yet again at a crossroad, both globally and in Cyprus, continued the UN official, adding that last week in New York the member states of the UN adopted the Pact for the Future, a wide-ranging recommitment to multilateralism, Steward added.
“It is easy to feel disconnected from such global gatherings, thousands of kilometers away, but this year the state of the world seems particularly dire. In his statement to the General Assembly, the Secretary-General described a situation that has become unsustainable. We are facing unprecedented challenges and the only solution is to reinvigorate the international multilateral system,” he noted.
“It is an important first step, and we all hope that together they can find a way forward that will ultimately lead to talks to reach a settlement of the Cyprus Issue. Optimism is enshrined in the job description for my post, but at the same time I know it won’t be easy. As I have said at this Forum before, however, the stakes are high because time is running out. The divisions on the island continue to grow deeper, and, while we can’t say for sure that this is the last chance, at the same time we cannot count on there being other opportunities in the future. So, we’d better make the best of the current fleeting possibility in case it is the last one”, he stressed.
The UN continue our efforts to build bridges across the divide and to remove walls, he then said, stressing that economic ties are the most effective ways to bring the island together, with economic integration paving the way for political unity.
He added that the UN continue to facilitate regular meetings of the 12 technical committees where dedicated experts from both sides work effectively together to address issues of concern to all Cypriots (environmental, crime, cultural heritage, gender), and bring together groups of young people, women, environmentalists, artists from both sides of the island.
“If we hope for a settlement to the Cyprus Issue, one truth remains: Cypriots must learn to live together on the island again, to get beyond ‘us versus them’. And the first step is to increase mutual understanding, something that seems to only grow worse each year”, he stressed.
He added that a lot of Cypriots have reached out to people in the other community, and listened to their stories.
“When you listen, truly listen, to each other’s stories, the first thing you recognize is that everyone suffered, and this recognition is the first step on the path to reconciliation. The second thing you recognize is that, while there will never be complete agreement on the past, cherished narratives on both sides are partial truths. There is always some truth to the other side’s narrative, and there are always some aspects of our own narrative that don’t hold up so well to scrutiny. But the end result of such interactions is that, contrary to the two, non-intersecting and conflicting public narratives, we find that there is actually a lot more common ground than we realize”, he stressed in that regard.
“As the Cyprus Issue enters its 7th decade on the UN agenda, in the face of all that is happening around this island, let this be the year that we reveal the hidden common ground and agree on the way forward for Cyprus”, he concluded.
( Source : CNA)