Next enlarged Cyprus meeting: Sooner or later?

Both before and after Thursday’s tripartite meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman and United Nations envoy Maria Angela Holguin, and likely during it as well, President Nikos Christodoulides was on the campaign trail for an enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem to be held in the near future.

Such a meeting would be the third of its kind since the start of this year, with the island’s two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the UN having convened to discuss the Cyprus problem in Geneva in March and in New York in July.

It was Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the prime minister of guarantor power Greece, who was the first of the players to listen to Christodoulides’ wishes for a fresh enlarged meeting, with Christodoulides telling him during a telephone call held before Thursday’s tripartite that an enlarged meeting should be held “as soon as possible”.

Following three and a half hours of talks with Erhurman and Holguin, the matter of an enlarged meeting remained at the top of his thoughts when he addressed journalists on Thursday night.

He said he would be ready as early as “next week” to participate in an enlarged meeting, and while no date for such a meeting has yet been decided, he set expectations high for an agreement to be found on a date from Holguin’s trips to Greece and Turkey in the days which were to follow.

“You understand that after these meetings and in particular the meeting with [Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan], we will be able to talk more specifically about the date of this enlarged meeting,” he said.

However, while Erhurman expressed his willingness to make progress on the Cyprus problem, his belief is that progress should be made in advance of an enlarged meeting, and not only through it.

He called a press conference on Thursday night and stressed that the next enlarged meeting “must be an innovative and meaningful process”.

To this end, he said that while Thursday’s tripartite meeting saw “small advances”, the achievements were “not sufficient to create an environment conducive to comprehensive negotiations”.

“It is not appropriate to proceed with an enlarged meeting without more comprehensive solutions, including crossing points,” he said, before adding that “steps have been taken and some progress has been made … but this is not yet sufficient for a comprehensive solution process”.

A day prior to the tripartite, he had said that there will be no enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem until the issues which are to be discussed have been “fully developed” during talks in Cyprus”, and that an enlarged meeting “would not be appropriate” until that time.

If Christodoulides’ statements on Thursday night are to be believed, however, Erhurman’s olive branch was not fully extended over the matter of the crossing points, at least, turning down his Greek Cypriot interlocutor’s suggestion of a new pedestrian crossing point being opened in central Nicosia.

Christodoulides had suggested a crossing point in Nicosia’s old town at the New York enlarged meeting in July, with residents and businessowners in the old town becoming frustrated at the Ledra Street crossing point becoming increasingly overcrowded with tourists, many of whom visit it in large guided groups and fill the street and its surrounding alleyways.

The suggestion had been batted away then, too, by Erhurman’s predecessor Ersin Tatar, though a Turkish Cypriot diplomatic source told the Sunday Mail that this decision was a matter of priority, rather than any resolute opposition to the concept as a whole or deeply held wish to slow the process down.

They said that the idea of a new crossing point in Nicosia’s old town is “on the agenda”, but that “the Turkish side stated that the primary need was not pedestrian crossings, but rather easing vehicle traffic”.

While Erhurman appears to have carried this particular stance over from his predecessor, progress has been felt in other areas, with both leaders agreeing that “the real aim is the solution of the Cyprus problem with political equality as described by the United Nations security council resolutions”.

This, after five years of the island’s two sides having been unable to agree on the basis for a solution, with Tatar insisting on a two-state model, is a statement of intent.

Christodoulides said on this matter that the “reference to the United Nations resolutions is important”, while Erhurman stressed the importance of the reference to “political equality” in the statement the UN made after the meeting.

Erhurman also went into detail about some of the matters agreed upon with Christodoulides and Holguin, saying that “a clear agreement has been reached between the sides to complete the implementation by the end of January” of the procedures to allow Turkish Cypriot halloumi producers who have obtained the EU’s protected designation of origin (PDO) certificate to export their products over the Green Line and into the wider EU.

Additionally, he said, it will also now be possible for insurance and MOT certificates for Turkish Cypriot vehicles to be obtained at both the Astromeritis and Dherynia crossing points.

Looking ahead, all eyes will now be on Holguin to see if a fresh enlarged meeting will be convened sooner, as is Christodoulides’ wish, or later.

She travelled to Athens on Friday to meet both Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis, and she is expected to also travel to Ankara to meet high-level Turkish officials in the coming days.

Greek media reported that “the issue of convening the next enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem was discussed” between Holguin and Mitsotakis, though Erhurman’s wish for the issues to be “fully developed” will probably push the date of that enlarged meeting into next year at least.

However, his ostensible will to discuss the substance of the Cyprus problem and his agreement with Christodoulides on the model for a solution will likely mean that as and when an enlarged meeting is held, it will not resemble the two which were held this year.