Well-informed sources tell The Levant Files that Ankara is open to dialogue on Cyprus and Greek-Turkish relations, but will not return to the federal negotiating model that collapsed at Crans-Montana in 2017.
Ankara will not enter a new Cyprus negotiation on the basis of the federal formula pursued at Crans-Montana nearly a decade ago, well-informed sources have told The Levant Files, as reports emerge of a possible United Nations effort to table a more flexible political framework later this summer.
According to the sources, Turkey welcomes dialogue on all outstanding issues, including the Cyprus problem and Greek-Turkish relations. However, Ankara’s position is that it is impossible to return to the deadlocks and assumptions that defined previous rounds of negotiations.
The sources said Ankara strongly supports what it describes as the state dimension of the Turkish Cypriot side and considers a just, equal sharing of land, governance, airspace and maritime areas to be essential to any durable settlement.
The position comes amid growing discussion over a potential new UN initiative led by the Secretary-General’s personal envoy, María Ángela Holguín. A report by Politis columnist Dionysis Dionysiou said Holguín may be working towards an expanded “5+1” meeting during the summer, possibly built around a looser European framework that could be presented as a federation by Greek Cypriots and as a confederation by Turkish Cypriots.
According to the report, the concept would move away from the extensive federal model negotiated in earlier years. It could instead leave only limited competences at the central level, while granting broad authority to two constituent entities. Possible arrangements reportedly under discussion include a presidential council, a reduced number of common ministries, mechanisms for Turkish Cypriot participation in decision-making and a transitional period involving territorial and economic measures.
The reported ideas include a possible return of Varosha and other territory, alongside steps sought by the Turkish Cypriot side such as direct trade, direct contacts and direct flights. The report also referred to potential changes in aviation and maritime restrictions, as well as a broader EU-Turkey dimension to any renewed Cyprus process.
For Ankara, however, the central issue remains whether a future process can escape the logic of the past. The sources stressed that Turkey is ready to engage, but not in a negotiation designed to reproduce the impasses that brought the Crans-Montana conference to an end in July 2017.
Former Turkish Cypriot negotiator Özdil Nami, meanwhile, has voiced concern that the reported UN approach could reopen questions that he believes were substantially settled through years of negotiations.
In a Facebook post, Nami said Dionysiou had earned a reputation for serious and reliable journalism and that he therefore treated the report on possible UN planning with considerable seriousness. But he warned that, if the account proved accurate, Cyprus could be heading towards another unsuccessful effort that might also undermine achievements secured through a Cypriot-led negotiating process.
Nami argued that the two sides had already negotiated the essential elements of governance and power-sharing. In his view, the dispute over a rotating presidency had concerned the method of election rather than the principle itself, while the competences of a federal government had been comprehensively addressed in previous talks. He also pointed to the leaders’ Joint Declaration of February 11, 2014, arguing that the sovereignty question had been effectively dealt with.
“At a time when both current leaders have publicly expressed their readiness to respect past convergences, the role of the United Nations should be to safeguard and build upon what has already been achieved,” Nami said in substance. He argued that the UN should focus on bridging the remaining gaps rather than reopening settled matters or redesigning arrangements negotiated by the parties.
Nami also questioned the reported notion of a transitional phase based on “irreversible early gains” for both sides. He singled out ideas involving the return of Varosha in exchange for direct flights to Ercan and direct trade through northern ports, saying comparable initiatives had repeatedly failed because of concerns over implied recognition, lost negotiating leverage and domestic political sensitivities.
Such arrangements, he argued, may prove even harder to agree than the unresolved core issues contained in the Guterres Framework. Territory and political equality, Nami said, have always formed part of an overall balance of give-and-take in a comprehensive settlement and should not be detached from one another.
He further warned that early territorial concessions would not guarantee approval of a final agreement in separate referenda. If a comprehensive settlement were again rejected by Greek Cypriot voters, he asked, would Turkish Cypriots then be expected to make further concessions on territory and accept a narrower interpretation of political equality?
For Nami, the deeper obstacle is not a shortage of agreed substance but the structure of the process itself. He called for a clearly defined timeframe, effective arbitration mechanisms and meaningful consequences for a final-stage rejection of an agreement.
The emerging debate therefore exposes two sharply different concerns around a possible renewed UN initiative. Ankara appears determined to prevent a return to the Crans-Montana model and to secure explicit recognition of Turkish Cypriot political status and equality. Nami, while remaining committed to a comprehensive settlement, fears that an attempt to build an entirely new framework could weaken the body of convergences accumulated over decades.
Whether Holguín’s reported consultations evolve into a formal proposal remains to be seen. But the dispute already taking shape suggests that any new Cyprus process will face a familiar challenge: finding a formula flexible enough to bring the parties back to the table, yet sufficiently precise to survive the political tests that have defeated previous efforts.