The participation of UN Secretary “Guterres’ attendance at the BRICS gathering in Kazan in Russia last week is proof that he is not beholden to the West, and his principled stand on Gaza and Lebanon shows that he is a great humanitarian prepared to come off the fence and tell it how it is at great personal cost – he has been declared persona non grata by Israel”. This opinion was expressed by British Queen’s Counsel and retired judge Ali Riza Alper in his traditional Sunday column on Cypriot CyprusMail.
“Antonio Guterres is probably the best UN Secretary-General since Sweden’s Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961), who was killed in a plane crash trying to bring peace to the Congo. Guterres’ presence at the 16th BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia last week is proof that he owes nothing to the West, and his principled position on Gaza and Lebanon demonstrates that he is a great humanist, ready to go beyond the usual framework and tell the truth, paying a great personal price for it, since Israel declared him persona non grata. But he is a persona grata in Cyprus” according to Alper.
The author of the article also proposed making the legal basis for the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus, recognized by both communities of the island, including the Zurich-London Agreements of 1959, the basis for achieving a Cyprus settlement. Ali Riza Alper believes that achieving a breakthrough in the Cyprus settlement before the end of 2026, when the term of the current UN Secretary-General ends, would be a brilliant end to Guterres’ tenure as head of the World Organization.
