Appointing a UN mediator to work in tandem with the United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in
March 1964 led to fundamental shifts in how the UN Secretariat inner circle orientated the organisation’s
presence in Cyprus. The escalating crisis between the two communities in Cyprus and political pressure from UN
member-states to ...
Appointing a UN mediator to work in tandem with the United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in
March 1964 led to fundamental shifts in how the UN Secretariat inner circle orientated the organisation’s
presence in Cyprus. The escalating crisis between the two communities in Cyprus and political pressure from UN
member-states to respond before Cold War superpower nations became engulfed, prompted the creation of
UNFICYP and the recruitment of a UN mediator on 4th March 1964. This article argues that the UN
leadership intended to restore member-state trust following the controversial Congo mission (ONUC) and expand
the organisation’s diplomatic agency through the innovation of deploying the dedicated mediator alongside the armed
mission. However, the success of the meditator was diplomatically limited by the localised dynamics of the Cyprus
conflict and the willingness of the Guarantor parties to surrender their sovereign imaginaries of post-colonial
Cyprus. Ultimately, the experiment in field-based mediation forced the UN Secretariat leadership to acknowledge
the incompatibility of appeasing all member-states on one hand whilst leading field-based political negotiations with
the other.
