United Nations Security Council Resolution 2483 –The situation in Cyprus

Resolution 2483 (2019)

The Security Council,

Welcoming the report of the Secretary-General of 16 April on his Good Offices (S/2019/322) and of 10 July on the United Nations operation in Cyprus (S/2019/562), further welcoming the Secretary-General’s willingness, and expressing its full support for his Good Offices to remain available to assist the sides, should they jointly decide to re-engage in negotiations with the necessary political will,

Underscoring that the responsibility for finding a solution lies first and foremost with the Cypriots themselves, and reaffirming the primary role of the United Nations in assisting the parties to bring the Cyprus conflict and division of the island to a comprehensive and durable settlement with a sense of urgency,

Noting the progress made towards a comprehensive settlement up to and including the Conference on Cyprus in June 2017, including the commitments in the leaders’ Joint Statement of 2 April 2017 on the basis of the Joint Declaration of 11 February 2014, and recalling the six points of the Secretary-General’s framework presented on 30 June 2017 as a way to move forward to close the remaining gaps,

Urging the sides to renew their efforts to achieve an enduring, comprehensive and just settlement based on a bicommunal, bizonal federation with political equality, as set out in relevant Security Council resolutions, including OP4 of its resolution 716 (1991), and stressing that the status quo is unsustainable,

Expressing concern at the increased tensions in the eastern Mediterranean over hydrocarbons exploration, convinced of the many important benefits, including economic benefits for all Cypriots that would flow from a comprehensive and durable settlement, and reiterating the Secretary-General’s call for serious efforts to avoid any further escalation and to defuse tensions,

Recalling its resolution 1325 (2000) and related resolutions, recognising that the active and meaningful participation and leadership of women is essential in building peace in Cyprus and will contribute to making any future settlement sustainable, welcoming efforts to bring together a broader range of women actors on both sides, and looking forward to the outcome of the gender-sensitive socio-economic impact assessment requested in its resolution 2453 (2019),

Emphasising the importance of confidence-building measures and their timely implementation, and urging the sides to step up their efforts to promote intercommunal contacts, reconciliation and the active engagement of civil society, in particular women and youth,

Noting that the Government of Cyprus is agreed that in view of the prevailing conditions on the island it is necessary to keep the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) beyond 31 July 2019,

Welcoming measures to date to strengthen the liaison and engagement capacity of the mission, noting the importance of transition planning in relation to the settlement, and emphasising the need to regularly review all peacekeeping operations, including UNFICYP, to ensure efficiency and effectiveness,

Echoing the Secretary-General’s gratitude to the Government of Cyprus and the Government of Greece for their voluntary contributions to the funding of UNFICYP, and expressing appreciation to Member States that contribute personnel to UNFICYP,

Noting with appreciation the efforts of the Secretary-General, his Special Representative Elizabeth Spehar, and senior United Nations official Jane Holl Lute,

1. Expresses regret at the lack of progress towards a settlement since the conclusion of the 2017 Conference on Cyprus, and urges the sides and all involved participants to renew their political will and commitment to a settlement under United Nations auspices, including by engaging actively and with a sense of urgency with senior United Nations official, Jane Holl Lute, to achieve agreement on terms of reference to enable results-oriented negotiations leading to a settlement as quickly as possible;

2. Calls for a reduction of tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean; calls upon the leaders of the two Cypriot communities and all involved parties to refrain from any actions and rhetoric that might damage the chances of success;

3. Reaffirms all its relevant resolutions on Cyprus, in particular resolution 1251 (1999);

4. Recalls its resolution 2453 (2019), and calls upon the two leaders to:

(a) put their efforts expeditiously behind further work on reaching convergences on the core issues;

(b) empower all Technical Committees to submit proposals for their consideration to enhance intercommunal contacts and improve the daily lives of all Cypriots;

(c) promote peace education across the island, including by further empowering the Technical Committee on Education to implement the recommendations contained in its joint report of 2017, and to address impediments to peace in school materials, including text books, as a contribution to trust-building between the communities;

(d) improve the public atmosphere for negotiation to secure a settlement, including by preparing the communities for a settlement through public messages on convergences and the way ahead, and delivering more constructive and harmonised messages; and by refraining from actions or rhetoric that detracts from a successful process or could make it more difficult to achieve;

(e) increase their support to, and ensure a meaningful role for, civil society engagement in peace efforts, in particular strengthening the participation of women ’s organisations and youth in the process, including by empowering the Technical Committee on Gender Equality to meet and develop an action plan supporting women’s participation in peace talks and providing direct support and encouragement to civil society organisations to enhance inter-communal contact and trust-building;

5. Calls upon the sides and the relevant involved parties, with UNFICYP as facilitator through its liaison role, to intensify their efforts to establish a mechanism for direct contacts at military level, and to continue to explore ways to establish mechanisms and enhance existing initiatives where necessary for effectively alleviating tensions, increasing joint efforts on criminal matters and to help address island-wide matters that affect all Cypriots;

6. Welcomes the recent progress towards the inter-operability of mobile phones across the island, urges the implementation of all other agreed confidence-building measures including those agreed by the leaders in their meeting of 26 February 2019, and looks forward to agreement on and implementation of further steps, including military confidence-building measures;

7. Commends the work of the Committee on Missing Persons, and calls upon all parties expeditiously to enhance their cooperation with the Committee ’s work, in particular through providing full access to all areas and responding in a timely manner to requests for archival information on possible burial sites;

8. Expresses its full support for UNFICYP, and decides to extend its mandate for a further period ending 31 January 2020;

9. Expresses serious concern at the increased number of violations of the military status quo along the ceasefire lines, calls on the sides and all involved parties to respect UNFICYP’s mandated authority in, and delineation of, the buffer zone, and urges the use of the 2018 United Nations aide-memoire by the sides to ensure peace and security in the buffer zone;

10. Calls on the Turkish Cypriot side and Turkish forces to restore in Strovilia the military status quo which existed there prior to 30 June 2000, and recalls the status of Varosha as set out in relevant resolutions;

11. Calls on both sides to agree to, and to implement, a plan of work to achieve a mine-free Cyprus, including as a first step, delivering on their agreement of 26 February 2019;

12. Requests the Secretary-General to increase the number of women in UNFICYP in line with its resolution 2242 (2015), as well as to ensure the full, effective and meaningful participation of women in all aspects of operations;

13. Welcomes the initiatives undertaken by the Secretary-General to standardise a culture of performance in UN peacekeeping, recalls its requests in resolution 2378 (2017) and resolution 2436 (2018) that the Secretary-General ensure that performance data related to the effectiveness of peacekeeping operations is used to improve mission operations, including decisions such as those regarding deployment, remediation, repatriation and incentives, and reaffirms its support for the development of a comprehensive and integrated performance policy framework that identifies clear standards of performance for evaluating all United Nations civilian and uniformed personnel working in and supporting peacekeeping operations that facilitates effective and full implementation of mandates, and includes comprehensive and objective methodologies based on clear and well-defined benchmarks to ensure accountability for underperformance and incentives and recognition for outstanding performance, and calls on the United Nations to apply this framework to UNFICYP as described in resolution 2436 (2018);

14. Requests the Secretary-General to continue to take necessary measures to ensure full compliance of all personnel in UNFICYP with the United Nations zero -tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse and to keep the Council fully informed about the Mission’s progress in this regard, and urges troop-contributing and police-contributing countries to continue taking appropriate preventative action,including vetting of all personnel, pre-deployment and in-mission awareness training, timely investigations of allegations, as appropriate, and to take appropriate steps to hold perpetrators accountable and repatriate units when there is credible evidence of widespread or systematic sexual exploitation and abuse by those units;

15. Requests the Secretary-General to submit by 15 November 2019 a report on his Good Offices, in particular on progress towards reaching a consensus starting point for meaningful results-oriented negotiations leading to a settlement, encourages the leaders of the two communities to provide written updates to the Good Offices Mission of the Secretary-General on the actions they have taken in support of the relevant parts of this resolution with a view to reaching a sustainable and comprehensive settlement, and further requests the Secretary-General to include the contents of these updates in his Good Offices report; further requests the Secretary-General to submit by 10 January 2020 a report on implementation of this resolution, including further information on how best to strengthen UNFICYP’s role in the buffer zone to de-escalate tensions, and to keep the Security Council updated on events as necessary;

16. Decides to remain seized of the matter.

Adopted by the Security Council at its 8586th meeting, on 25 July 2019.