A meeting between the President of the Republic, Nikos Christodoulides, and the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community, Tufan Erhürman, is scheduled for 4pm today, Thursday, 11 December, in the presence of the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy, María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar.
In statements made in recent days, President Christodoulides said that he is going to the meeting with the aim of seeing how the two leaders can create the conditions for the resumption of talks from where they left off in Crans-Montana. He also noted that he is ready to discuss confidence-building measures and that he has several new ideas.
Before the meeting with Holguín, the two leaders will visit the Committee on Missing Persons.
After the meeting, they will attend an informal reception hosted by the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, Khassim Diagne.
Meanwhile, on Thursday morning, President Christodoulides will meet with the European Union’s envoy for the Cyprus issue, Johannes Hahn.
Government Spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis said on Wednesday that President Christodoulides will attend the meeting with the Turkish Cypriot leader with the same seriousness, the same constructive attitude, calmness, and political will that characterize the Greek Cypriot side, maintaining as the sole objective the restart of the process of substantive negotiations.
He noted that the joint visit of the two leaders to the Anthropological Laboratory of the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP), which will take place beforehand, will send a strong message of determination that the search for the fate of the missing remains constant and unwavering. He added that President Christodoulides has already convened the National Council on Friday, December 12, in the afternoon, to brief the country’s political leadership on the outcome of his recent contacts.
“The involvement of the European Union in the efforts to resume negotiations was a goal that President Christodoulides himself had personally set from the outset, and the appointment of an EU Envoy — along with his mission and terms of reference — creates an additional diplomatic capacity that did not exist until now and can certainly be utilized. The meeting, of course, will take place at a very critical moment, on a very critical day for the Cyprus issue, as the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy, Ms. Holguín, is already in our country,” he added.
He continued by saying that the President’s goal in the discussion is to raise substantive issues related to the Cyprus problem and the convening of the next multilateral conference as soon as possible, as the UN Secretary-General has already announced. A review of the progress of the confidence-building measures agreed upon during the last two multilateral conferences is also expected.
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.
(Source: CNA)
