In Turkey, there is a saying: "Maksat üzüm yemek değil, bağcıyı dövmek" ("The aim is not to eat the grapes but to beat the vineyard keeper"). Cyprus has found a fresh use for it. A joint meeting in New York failed to materialise. Now the argument is over who stopped a UN document from being delivered. The document has become another way to accuse the other side, although the public has yet to see it.
By The Levant Files Editorial Desk | 1 October 2026
"The document war has become another way to accuse the other side."
What Are the Convergences?
They are the points on which Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot negotiators drew close, or reached a common understanding, during earlier settlement talks. The word sounds vague. The subjects were anything but. Between 2015 and 2017, the teams worked on the powers of a federal government, how its institutions would make decisions, citizenship, the economy, EU matters, property, territory, and security. A 2017 report by UN Secretary-General António Guterres says the sides exchanged more than 565 joint papers recording their work.
That report gives a sense of what was achieved. The sides had largely settled many questions about federal institutions and citizenship. Economic arrangements were close to completion. On property, they accepted that displaced owners and current users should have options including compensation, exchange and reinstatement, subject to agreed criteria. Major questions remained open, especially on territory, political power, troops and guarantees. A convergence was never a final settlement. The talks operated on the principle that nothing was agreed until everything was agreed.
Holguín says the UN has drawn on the joint documents submitted by both sides in 2015–2017, along with other material in its archives, to prepare a consolidated record for future negotiations. She has described its sources and purpose to Yusuf Kanlı of ANKA. She has not published its text or an itemised table of its contents. Nobody outside the process can honestly say which disputed point the new document labels a convergence, how it qualifies that point, or what it leaves out.
The Row Over Delivery
After a National Council meeting on 30 September, Greek Cypriot sources told the Cyprus News Agency that the Turkish Cypriot side had refused to receive a document on the convergences and that Turkey opposed its delivery. They also spoke of an earlier two-page paper containing headings rather than the detailed record. According to those sources, it was prepared for both sides but was not handed over after an objection in the north.
That allegation deserves an answer. It also needs to be kept distinct from Holguín's own account of the larger UN document. Speaking to Kanlı on 28 September, she said the consolidated record would be given to the parties when negotiations begin and when it becomes useful. Delivering it sooner, she said, could spark a fresh fight over the negotiating record. Erhürman pointed to her words on 1 October. They challenge the suggestion that he alone is withholding the consolidated document. They do not tell us what happened with the alleged two-page paper, or establish whether Ankara intervened.
Erhürman has long argued that a new round must preserve previous convergences. If his side objected to receiving even a list of headings, he owes the public a reason. If the Greek Cypriot account is wrong, he can answer that specific claim. Quoting Holguín's timetable leaves it hanging.
And the Nineteen Proposals?
Christodoulides did say he had 19 proposals. He raised them before his meeting with Erhürman on 17 September and discussed them again in New York. According to his own statement after meeting Guterres, they concern settlement issues, the method of negotiation and confidence-building measures. Asked to give their details, he said he did not wish to comment publicly at that moment. No full, numbered list has been made public in the sources reviewed for this article.
Confidential diplomacy has its place. Yet Christodoulides has repeatedly used the number 19 as evidence of his readiness to move. The public cannot judge that claim by counting proposals it cannot read. Erhürman, for his part, says the new package distracted from seven confidence-building issues already put forward by Guterres. That criticism may have force, but it does not excuse walking away from a chance to test whether even one practical measure could be agreed.
The Work Still Waiting in Nicosia
Holguín's account of New York is plainer than either side's accusation. The proposed three-way meeting had not been scheduled. Christodoulides asked for it. Erhürman wanted to know what new ground it would cover and concluded that it would produce little without preparation. The envoy has also pointed to a disaster-response committee the sides have agreed to establish but have yet to make work. New crossings, demining and other measures remain caught in the same habits of bargaining.
There is plenty for both leaders to explain. Christodoulides can describe enough of his 19 proposals for Cypriots to judge their value. Erhürman can give a direct account of the document dispute. Both can say which confidence-building measure they are prepared to put into effect first, and when. Until then, the argument will keep circling a paper the UN has not released while the decisions people could feel in daily life wait on the table.
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