Nicosia, 3 November 2017 - The Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) in Cyprus and Head of UNFICYP, Ms. Elizabeth Spehar, yesterday attended and made remarks at the 13th Annual Cyprus Summit, held at the Hilton Park Hotel in Nicosia on 1 and 2 November, and organized by The Economist.

Other speakers at this year’s event, held under the theme ‘Europe on the move – Cyprus in the fast lane?’, included the President of the Republic of Cyprus, H.E. Nicos Anastasiades, the IMF’s resident representative in Cyprus, Mr. Vincenzo Guzzo, the U.S. Ambassador to Cyprus, H.E. Ms. Kathleen Doherty, as well as a number of other senior figures from government and the private sector.

After a brief review of recent developments, SRSG Spehar spoke about some of the initial lessons learned from the 2015 to 2017 round of negotiations.

She noted that courageous and determined leadership is critical to successful peace processes, and observed, in the case of Cyprus, the importance of a Cypriot-led process.

“The second lesson is the importance of building a constituency for peace and the role of local actors in this endeavour. As we have observed time and again all over the world, peace is indeed built from the ground up,” SRSG Spehar said. “The leaders need broad and energetic support from across society to push forward for a deal and to make it a reality.” The SRSG touched on other “lessons learned” from the recent negotiations, including the benefit of focusing more attention on the economic dimension of a settlement and taking a comprehensive approach to the key issue of security.  

Other discussions at the summit focused on a number of areas, from the performance of the Republic of Cyprus’ economy to the impact of Brexit on the European Union and the status of local financial sector.

For more information on the summit, visit: https://events.economist.com/events-conferences/emea/13th-cyprus-summit/