President in New York for informal meeting on Cyprus

The informal meeting on Cyprus in a broader format, chaired by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, begins today, 16 July, in New York.

The heads of the five delegations are President Nikos Christodoulides, Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Greece and Turkey, Giorgos Gerapetritis and Hakan Fidan, respectively, and UK Minister of State for Europe Stephen Doughty.

The informal meeting is to begin at 7 pm local time (2.00 am Cyprus time) with a dinner hosted by Guterres for the participants, which will take place at the UN headquarters.

Tomorrow, Thursday, the UN Secretary-General will hold bilateral meetings with the delegations of each side at the UN headquarters. President Christodoulides’ meeting with Guterres, was scheduled for 10.25 am New York time (17.25 Cyprus time).

The plenary of the informal meeting at the United Nations headquarters is to begin, according to the programme, at 11.30 am (18.30 Cyprus time). At 1.30 pm (20.30 Cyprus time), the heads of delegations, accompanied by another member of the delegation, will participate in a working lunch.

After the working lunch, the final part of the plenary session will take place, which is expected to conclude at 4.45 pm (23.45 Cyprus time).

Government Spokesperson, Konstantinos Letymbiotis, said earlier this week that the Greek Cypriot side's aspiration, is for the informal meeting in New York to serve as a springboard for the resumption of substantive negotiations on the Cyprus problem from the point where they have been interrupted.The latest round of negotiations, in July 2017 at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana ended inconclusively.

The informal meeting in New York was agreed upon during the previous informal meeting held in Geneva last March. The two leaders had at the time agreed on initiatives to build trust between the two sides. Namely, the opening of four new crossing points, the creation of a technical committee on youth, demining, initiatives on the environment and climate change, including the impacts on mining areas, the production of solar energy in the buffer zone and the restoration of cemeteries. Guterres also announced that they had agreed to hold a further meeting, in the same format, at the end of July, and that he would appoint a personal envoy to prepare the next steps.

(Source: CNA)