‘All Parties Give consent’ for Enlarged Meeting on Cyprus Problem

The Cyprus News Agency reported that a “brief discussion” was held between United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and President Nikos Christodoulides on the sidelines of the ongoing Cop29 climate meeting in the Azeri capital Baku, in which Guterres informed Christodoulides of progress.

Plans for such a meeting had been afoot since Christodoulides met Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar at an informal dinner in New York in October, with reports suggesting on Tuesday that UN under-secretary-general for peacebuilding Rosemary DiCarlo will visit the island soon.

The reports surface after Christodoulides was pictured in conversation with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Baku, with the pair joined by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.

That meeting comes less than a week after Christodoulides, Fidan, and Rama sat around a coffee table with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at the week’s European Political Community summit in Budapest.

Christodoulides told journalists after that meeting that he had mentioned “several times” to Erdogan that the resumption of talks to solve the Cyprus problem can only be based on existing UN resolutions – in other words, on the basis of a bizonal, bicommunal federal solution with political equality.

A day earlier, Erdogan and Tatar had attended the Organisation of Turkic States (OTS) meeting in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek, where Erdogan had said  “the Turkic world is responsible for a fair solution in Cyprus.”

The exact specifications of the “enlarged meeting” are not yet known, with Christodoulides reportedly being in favour of a meeting involving the leaders of both communities and all three of Cyprus’ guarantor powers – Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom – as well as the UN, while Tatar has gone on the record as being against British involvement.

He had gone on the record before the informal dinner in October as having said that based on the lack of common ground found between Cyprus’ two sides, “an environment could be created for a 4+1 informal consultation.”

However, Christodoulides’ support for British involvement in talks extended to a visit to London last month.

There, he held a meeting with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at his official residence and said that he and Starmer are “on the same page” regarding the Cyprus problem.

“I consider it to be especially important that this meeting has taken place, taking into consideration that the new [British] government has just recently assumed its duties,” Christodoulides said after the meeting.

Source: Cyprus Mail