President Nikos Christodoulides is looking to today's meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhürman to open the way for more intensive and substantive consultations on the Cyprus problem, setting the week of the UN General Assembly in New York as an informal next milestone.
Speaking to reporters as he left the Presidential Palace for the United Nations Good Offices Mission, Christodoulides said he hoped today's meeting would mark the start of a more intensive process. "I am looking forward to a substantive discussion and a substantive meeting, which will be the starting point of more intensive consultations," he said.
New York as milestone
The president said that during his time in New York he would meet the UN secretary-general, and that he understood the Turkish Cypriot leader would also travel there after the conclusion of the General Assembly's official week for a separate meeting with Guterres. The goal, Christodoulides said, is for both sides to be in a position to update Guterres on the outcome of the intensive consultations he hopes will begin today.
Holguín due in Cyprus in early September
Christodoulides also said that María Ángela Holguín, the UN secretary-general's personal envoy on Cyprus, is expected on the island in early September. He said UN preparation work on convergences was at a "very advanced stage," a subject he intends to raise during today's meeting. He added that the aim is to create the conditions to achieve the goal set by the UN secretary-general: resuming talks from the point where they broke off in the summer of 2017.
'Illegality is one thing, the effort to solve is another'
Asked to comment on the strained atmosphere caused by tensions in Greek-Turkish relations and Turkish Cypriot complaints over the cancellation of international festivals in the north, Christodoulides drew a clear distinction between those issues and the effort to restart talks. "Illegality, unlawful actions, are something entirely different from the effort to start talks, and even more so from achieving a resolution of the Cyprus problem," he said. He added that resolving the Cyprus problem is precisely what would lead to the removal of the issues that arise as a result of unlawful actions.
