President Nikos Christodoulides said on Saturday that he hoped for progress at his meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman next week, after writing to the UN Secretary-General with specific ideas to move the process forward.
Following the National Council, he had recently written to the Secretary-General setting out very specific ideas on methodology, substance and confidence-building measures, following their discussion in New York, he said. He was speaking to reporters as he arrived at the Bicommunal Peace Festival in Pyla, which Erhurman also attended.
Asked about remarks by the UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy, Maria Angela Holguin, that the two sides were still far apart because not even one crossing point had been opened, Christodoulides said she had recently sent him a lengthy email, to which he had replied at length. It would have been welcome if Holguin had been present at his many meetings with the Turkish Cypriot leader, so that she had first-hand knowledge of everything discussed, he added.
On the crossing point, he said Holguin had been present at a joint dinner with the Secretary-General when the Secretary-General made a very specific proposal, which the Secretary-General described as a reasonable compromise. Holguin “knows very well who immediately said yes, who immediately said no”, and with whom the Secretary-General had a not very calm discussion over the response, he said.
Peace festival
Christodoulides said he had accepted the invitation from the community leader, whom he called a friend, as soon as he received it, to send a message of peace, coexistence and the need to reunite the country. Repeating what he had said in a recent interview with the Turkish Cypriot press, he said: “If it were up to Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, our homeland would certainly be reunited.”
That did not lessen Cypriots’ own responsibilities, he said, adding: “There is no option other than the reunification of our homeland.”
Such meetings were not enough on their own but were an important step, he said, and political will was what could unlock the whole effort. He said he was in favour of making the two leaders’ attendance at festivals and events a regular practice.
This was, if he remembered correctly, the sixth festival, and it was important that it was being held again after a six-year break, he said.
