Nicosia: President of the Republic, Nikos Christodoulides, and the new leader of the Turkish Cypriot community, Tufan Erhrman, are scheduled to hold their first meeting on Thursday. The meeting is set for 9:30 a.m. local time at the residence of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kassim Diagne, located in the UN protected area of the defunct Nicosia airport.
According to Cyprus News Agency, President Christodoulides expressed hope on Tuesday that the meeting would result in concrete outcomes, facilitating the resumption of peace talks from where they stalled in Crans-Montana. He stated, “I hope, and it is with this expectation that I am going to the meeting, that there will be concrete positive results towards resuming the talks from where they were interrupted in Crans-Montana. This is the only goal, and I am going there hoping that there will be a response so that we can immediately begin this great effort.”
President Christodoulides emphasized the readiness of his side to engage in negotiations and expressed his hope for a reciprocal response from the Turkish Cypriot leader. “We are ready and, I repeat, I hope there will be a response from the other side so that negotiations can begin as soon as possible,” he added.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, following Turkey’s invasion and occupation of its northern third. Numerous rounds of UN-led peace talks have been attempted, but none have succeeded in resolving the divide. The most recent negotiations, held in July 2017 at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana, ended without agreement.