On the 20th anniversary of UNSC resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres invited four women from the Central African Republic (CAR), Mali, Darfur (Sudan) and Cyprus for a virtual UN roundtable discussion. During the meeting, the failure of the Cyprus peace negotiations at Crans Montana, in Switzerland, in 2017 was mentioned. Guterres remarked on the key role that women had had on both sides of the peace table in the previous years and continued to have afterwards in strengthening dialogue, cooperation and trust, and stated that women must be involved also when the peace processes move to the top levels. This statement carries a loud message to the Cypriot leaders to rethink the exclusion of women and what this entails. For me, as an academic, it begets the question of “what women” should sit at the negotiations and whose agenda they should advocate for.
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