Hopes of framework agreement to end of the west’s most intractable disputes rise as Turkish prime minister agrees to attend

Politicians including Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, arrived in Geneva on Thursday for a landmark conference as the UK, Greece and Turkey – Cyprus’s three postcolonial guarantor powers – joined talks aimed at bringing peace to the island.



Britain believes the chances of a framework agreement of substance have increased now that the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, has also agreed to attend. Turkey has always said it would only be represented at such a senior level at the conference if there was serious progress.

The UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, hailed progress in the talks but cautioned against hopes of a “quick fix”. He trumpeted “enormous progress” since the two Cypriot leaders embarked on issues like territory, property and relations with the European Union, but said “we need to find a number of instruments” when it comes to security options.

One of the west’s most intractable disputes had edged closer to resolution on Wednesday as the leaders of Cyprus’s Greek and Turkish communities discussed the critical issue of territorial realignment.



Nicos Anastasiades and Mustafa Akıncı moved to the make-or-break issue of territorial trade-offs and the contours of an envisioned two-state federation on the third day of peace talks without a breakdown in negotiations.

Any agreement would however require further talks ahead of a summer referendum. Johnson will offer half of the territory currently held by UK sovereign bases on the island, a former British colony, to ease land swaps. The UK will also say it is open to ending its formal role as security guarantor if other parties agree.



“The UK fully supports the settlement process and is ready and willing to help in any way it can,” Johnson said ahead of his arrival. “I hope that all those involved will approach the talks with a sense of openness and flexibility. I believe that if approached in this light, a solution is in reach to bring lasting peace to Cyprus”.

In a country where more than 200,000 people lost their homes, territory and the boundaries both states would have is key to a solution. For the first time, away from Cyprus in the psychologically less charged atmosphere of Switzerland, the two leaders pored over maps and tackled the thorny question of land swaps and percentages on the war-torn island.



“We have dealt with some of the most difficult issues,” said Espen Barth Eide, a former Norwegian foreign minister who is overseeing the negotiations at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. “We have touched upon almost all of them, we have solved many of them and we are close to resolving some other issues.”

Earlier, Eide had described the discussions as “the moment of truth”. But he also warned there was still work to do amid growing signs of slippage in the timetables the two leaders had originally agreed to keep.

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Delegates instead spoke of an “open-ended” process in which the clock would stop if necessary. One said: “We recognise that issues that have taken years to address cannot be solved in a day. Negotiations may well extend into the weekend. We may adopt that age-old conference policy of stopping the clock.”



Others said that they had not booked return flights out of Geneva.

For Anastasiades, land swaps present by far the most delicate stage of the negotiations, which are highly emotive among his own constituency.



Although Cypriots from both sides of the ethnic divide rallied in support of a solution on Tuesday – braving icy temperatures to sing in the name of peace near the UN-patrolled buffer zone that divides the capital, Nicosia – the leader also faces considerable opposition from a cohort of rejectionist politicians. Six of the eight parties represented in Cyprus’s parliament oppose a settlement, mostly on the grounds that no deal would ever properly compensate those who lost property and homes when Turkey invaded in 1974.

Anastasiades, who sees this as the last chance to reunite Cyprus, has the daunting task of convincing the Turks to surrender enough territory to allow 90,000 refugees to return to their homes.

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Under Akıncı, the Turkish Cypriots have signalled they would be prepared to give up territory under their control but only if granted more power-sharing rights, including a rotating presidency. That is anathema to Greek nationalists, who argue that as the majority population they should exercise more power.

Eide said competing maps presented by the leaders were expected to be seen and studied by only a handful of aides in the respective negotiating teams before being stored in a UN vault, in acknowledgment of the sensitive diplomatic task ahead.

The framework of an agreement could be built, he said, if the foreign ministers of Cyprus’s three guarantor powers agreed to post-unification security arrangements during Thursday’s meeting.

Turkey has maintained an estimated 40,000 troops on the island since 1974. A far smaller contingent has also been stationed on the island by Athens, which now says the guarantor system should be dismantled – in sharp contrast to Ankara, which insists troops must stay.

The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, said: “I really think, without over-dramatising what is happening in Geneva, that this is the very last chance to see the island being recomposed in a normal way.”