EU to announce increased efforts in Cyprus issue, Christodoulides says

Announcements are expected soon from the EU that will reflect the increased interest that exists in helping to resolve the Cyprus issue, President Nikos Christodoulides said on Thursday.

The president was speaking on arrival in Brussels to attend the EU summit, a day after flying from New York where he attended a tripartite dinner with Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Guterres got the leaders to agree to a broader informal meeting “in the near future” under his auspices.  This meeting would include the three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey and Britain.

The leaders also agreed to meet in Cyprus to explore the possibility of opening new crossing points along the 180km buffer zone.

Informal Cyprus meetings are likely to be coordinated and chaired by UN Under-Secretary General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo.

The outcome of the dinner has been hailed as a positive step by all sides, mainly in the sense that it has indicated continued UN interest and secured some movement.

Christodoulides was briefing European leaders on the dinner on Thursday during various contacts in Brussels. He had already spoken with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, he said and that there would be announcements.

He gave no details only that these announcements would come after the approval of the new members of the European Commission by the European Parliament. This is expected to be done by the end of November and would show “the leading role” the EU could play in a resumption of talks.

“I am happy for the Secretary-General’s commitment, for his persistence, and we are here to strengthen this effort, together with the European Union which has a decisive role to play,” he said.

“We should soon expect some specific announcements from the European Union that will show the increased interest that exists, because it does exist, in relation to the resumption of talks”, he added, and the EU “has a role to play”.

From the UN’s part, he said the next steps would be related to convening an informal extended meeting specifically to examine the prospects for resuming talks. Meanwhile in Cyprus, he and Tatar would explore the prospects for opening more crossing points.

“There are many proposals from our side for confidence building measures, proposals that I also put to the Secretary-General. Unfortunately, we did not get the response we expected [from Tatar]”.

Konstantinos Letymbiotis told Cybc on Thursday that the expected informal five-party meeting with the guarantors, for which no date has been set, would examine all aspects of the Cyprus issue and it would become clear whether there were prospects of resuming negotiations.

“We have to look at the serious and fundamental issues of the Cyprus issue. We want continuity and it is important that the Secretary-General believes that there can be a resumption of negotiations,” he said.

“An important step was taken in New York that keeps this perspective alive when during the previous period, the attitude of the other side was completely outside the agreed framework.”