The latest attempt to lay the ground for the resumption of talks to reunite Cyprus failed after a three-day summit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a news conference in Geneva Thursday. Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders had gathered with the foreign ministers of Turkey, Greece and the United Kingdom to unblock a four-year pause in negotiations over the future of the Eastern Mediterranean island. It has been divided since 1974, when Turkish forces invaded the northern third of the island to torpedo a Greek Cypriot attempt to annex it to Greece and created the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, solely recognized by Ankara.

“The truth is that at the end of our efforts, we have not yet found enough common ground to allow for the resumption of formal negotiations,” Guterres said. The UN would try again in “probably two to three months,” he added. 

The outcome was widely predicted. Turkey and its protege, Ersin Tatar, a hawk who was recently elected president of the breakaway republic, raised the stakes at the outset. Citing the failure of decades of UN-brokered talks and the Greek Cypriot leadership’s refusal to grant Turkish Cypriots equal status in a federal state advocated by the UN, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Tatar insist that a fully sovereign Turkish Cypriot state loosely associated with the internationally recognized government of Cyprus is the most viable solution for both communities. 

Tatar opined that official negotiations on the future of Cyprus were “meaningless” without the recognition of sovereign equality of both sides, and that the Turkish Cypriots would not accept minority status in Greek Cypriot-ruled federation. The talks could only resume if the Greek Cypriots agreed to these terms.