The meeting between the two leaders will go ahead on Wednesday, September 9, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis confirmed, with the Cyprus problem process continuing on schedule.
The two negotiators, Letymbiotis added, will meet on Monday, September 7, and the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for the Cyprus issue, Maria Angela Holguin, is expected to visit Cyprus after the first ten days of September.
Briefing reporters on Thursday, Letymbiotis was asked whether developments in the occupied north would affect the Cyprus problem’s timetable. He said the milestone of the expiry of the UN Secretary-General’s mandate terms next December remains in place, adding: “Our own resolve, of course, remains undiminished.”
He called the decision to hold regular meetings between the two leaders very important, something “we not only welcome, but will seek to see continue.” He added that Holguin was coming to prepare for the period ahead. Her visit follows a meeting she will have with the Secretary-General, to further coordinate efforts towards convergence ahead of the next expanded conference.
Letymbiotis repeated his deep sorrow over the unjust loss of several people in a fatal shipwreck, and recalled that the Greek Cypriot side had responded from the very first moment, expressing its readiness to help “in whatever way possible.”
Asked whether the President would raise the issue of international arrest warrants for the killings of Isaak and Solomou with the Turkish Cypriot leader, following the sacking of Erhan Arikli, Letymbiotis said the outstanding warrants were not a matter for the dialogue between the two leaders. “These are matters which the Republic of Cyprus, as a full EU member state and a UN member state, has acceded to through the prescribed procedures, and through the prescribed procedures is taking all the necessary institutional measures that can be taken,” he said.
