UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy for Cyprus, Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar said on Friday that she is very encouraged from the things that she has heard from the civil society in Cyprus.

The UN official held a meeting on Friday with President Nikos Christodoulides at the Presidential Palace, in Nicosia.

In statements after the meeting, Holguin said that she listens to the society, the young people, women, noting that she will continue to do so.

She also said that this is what she is doing during these days that she will be here in Cyprus, next Sunday and that she will continue to do so in her next visit.

Regarding the meeting with the President, Holguin said that they had this second meeting which was a good one, stressing that they will continue to work.

“I am very encouraged from the things that I have heard from the civil society,” she noted, adding that “it is important to hear the feeling the ambitions of the people and then I am going to Ankara and to Athens and will come back in a couple of weeks.”.

Holguin was also expected to meet with the Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar today, in the island’s Turkish-occupied areas.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third. Repeated rounds of UN-led peace talks have so far failed to yield results. The latest round of negotiations, in July 2017 at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana ended inconclusively. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres appointed María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar of Colombia as his personal envoy for Cyprus, to assume a Good Offices role on his behalf and search for common ground on the way forward in the Cyprus issue.