Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides will meet United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in Brussels on 18 March on the sidelines of the European Council summit, Government Spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis announced on Thursday.
The meeting, which was arranged following a letter from Christodoulides to Guterres, forms part of what Letymbiotis described as the president’s clear and firm political will to resume negotiations on the Cyprus problem.
He said Cyprus was ready to resume talks from where they left off at the 2017 Crans-Montana conference, on the basis of a bizonal, bicommunal federation with political equality, in line with relevant UN resolutions and with full respect for the acquis of the previous negotiating process.
Letymbiotis said Cyprus considers a broader conference convened by the UN Secretary-General capable of driving meaningful progress, and that Cyprus was ready to attend such a conference to discuss all aspects of the Cyprus problem.
He said the regional crisis gave the meeting added significance, pointing to Cyprus’s role in contributing to regional security and stability.
On the sidelines of the same Brussels visit, Christodoulides will also meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Their talks will cover regional developments and review the close cooperation and ongoing communication between the two leaders throughout the current crisis, Letymbiotis said, within the framework of the EU’s active support for Cyprus.
Asked whether the government bore any responsibility for damage to Cyprus’s image abroad — including the UK Defence Secretary’s statement being contradicted and imagery from the Akrotiri air base — Letymbiotis said a productive meeting with tourism stakeholders had taken place under the president on Wednesday.
He said international media had been presenting a significantly exaggerated picture of conditions in Cyprus, stressing that normality was continuing, that the majority of airlines had restored their schedules, and that Cyprus remained an attractive tourist destination. He added that all measures being taken were precautionary.
Letymbiotis said the backdrop of the trilateral summit — held at an air base to assess coordination of precautionary measures — was appropriate to the occasion, responding to a journalist’s observation that the leaders had spoken in front of a military helicopter.
On fuel prices, Letymbiotis said the government’s economic team was assessing all available data, with any decisions dependent on developments that were changing not just day by day but potentially hour by hour. Announcements would be made at the appropriate time, he said.
Asked about repatriation requests, Letymbiotis said no official request from any state to use Cyprus as a route for repatriating nationals from the region had been received, and that any such request would be made public once received.
On irregular migration, Letymbiotis said the government maintained continuous close coordination across all relevant departments and ministries to sustain the positive trend observed in both reduced arrivals and increased deportations of irregular migrants.
