Cyprus is working towards convening an informal expanded meeting that would serve as the springboard for resuming Cyprus problem negotiations, Government Spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis said on Tuesday, after President Nikos Christodoulides held an expanded meeting with UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the Presidential Palace.
Letymbiotis said the talks had been substantial and sincere. “We welcome the Secretary-General’s political commitment to resuming talks on resolving the Cyprus problem” on the basis of UN Security Council resolutions, he said, adding that the aim is to pick up negotiations from where they stopped at Crans-Montana.
“We hope this sincere political will is shown by all sides,” he said. The goal, Letymbiotis said, is to convene an informal expanded conference that would serve as the springboard for resuming negotiations.
Speaking briefly after the meeting concluded, Guterres said there was strong commitment to resolving the Cyprus problem and that he would do everything in his power to advance the process.
The expanded meeting began at 10:15am. Christodoulides was joined by Foreign Minister Konstantinos Kombos, Deputy Minister for European Affairs Marilena Raouna, negotiator Menelaos Menelaou, Letymbiotis, Director of the President’s Diplomatic Office Doros Venezis, and Cyprus’s Permanent Representative to the UN Maria Michael. Guterres was accompanied by Deputy Secretaries-General Rosemary DiCarlo and Jean-Pierre Lacroix, his personal envoy María Ángela Holguín, and UNFICYP Head Khassim Diagne.
Christodoulides and Guterres then held a one-on-one meeting. Currently, Guterres meeting Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhürman in the occupied north.
The visit follows Guterres’s arrival in Cyprus, where he told Christodoulides that regional turmoil and shifting geopolitics make this the moment to resolve the Cyprus problem, warning the island could otherwise be swept into unwanted developments.
It also follows Sunday’s meeting between Christodoulides and Holguín, at which Letymbiotis described the visit as the springboard for an eventual expanded meeting.
Later on Tuesday, Guterres is scheduled to lay a wreath at the Peacekeepers’ Monument outside the Ledra Palace, visit the Committee on Missing Persons workshop, and hold further meetings with negotiators, heads of the technical committees and civil society representatives, before a private dinner with both leaders.
He will hold a joint meeting with Christodoulides and Erhürman on Wednesday morning, followed by a press conference ahead of his departure.
