Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (right) with Espen Barth Eide (left) Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Cyprus during Cyprus talks. 30 June 2017. UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré
There was much anticipation in the run up to the resumed Conference on Cyprus in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, at the end of June 2017. The feeling among many observers of the long-running “Cyprus problem” was that this latest phase of negotiations was the closest the parties – the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots – had come in at least a decade to reaching a settlement. These renewed hopes quickly turned to disappointment, however. In the early morning of 7 July, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who had come to the Swiss resort town hoping to give the talks a decisive push, announced to reporters that, despite intensive efforts from all involved, the Conference was closing without an agreement.
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