UNSC renews mandate of Cyprus peacekeeping mission
U.N. soldiers patrol inside the U.N.-controlled buffer zone in Lefkoşa (Nicosia), Cyprus Nov. 7, 2016. (Reuters File Photo)


The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) approved the renewal of the mandate of the U.N. Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) for another year.

The resolution, passed on Tuesday, also welcomed U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' recent appointment of Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar as his personal envoy to Cyprus.

It reaffirmed the "primary role of the UN in assisting the parties to bring the conflict and division of the island to a comprehensive and durable settlement."

María Ángela Holguín Cuellar, the newly appointed envoy for Cyprus, said she believes she can work with both Greek Cypriots in the island's south and Turkish Cypriots in the north to get them back to the negotiating table after years of complete stalemate.

The force, one of the U.N.'s longest-running peacekeeping missions, has been stationed on the island since 1964.

Cyprus has been mired in a decades-long dispute between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, despite a series of diplomatic efforts by the U.N. to achieve a comprehensive settlement.

Ethnic attacks starting in the early 1960s forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety.

In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at Greece's annexation of the island led to Türkiye's military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence. As a result, the TRNC was founded in 1983.

It has seen an on-and-off peace process in recent years, including a failed 2017 initiative in Switzerland under the auspices of guarantor countries Turkiye, Greece and the U.K.

The Greek Cypriot administration entered the European Union in 2004, the same year Greek Cypriots thwarted a U.N. plan to end the longstanding dispute.