Nicosia: The President of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, said on Sunday that he is fully ready to attend a multilateral meeting on the Cyprus issue under the UN Secretary-General, bringing specific ideas and proposals on how to achieve the main objective, which is the resumption of negotiations.
According to Cyprus News Agency, President Christodoulides made these remarks after presenting the priorities of the Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the EU in Lefkara. He emphasized the commencement of a new effort following the election of Tufan Erhrman as leader of the Turkish Cypriot community. The President expressed hope for concrete positive results, aiming for the resumption of talks from where they left off in 2017.
President Christodoulides reiterated Cyprus's goal of liberation and reunification and expressed hope that conditions on the Turkish side would allow for a multilateral meeting to resume negotiations. He affirmed his readiness to attend such a meeting whenever called upon by the Secretary-General, with specific ideas and proposals in hand.
Cyprus has remained divided since 1974, following Turkey's invasion and occupation of its northern third. Various UN-led peace talks have failed to yield results due to Turkish intransigence, the last significant negotiations ending inconclusively in 2017 at Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
In 2025, the Secretary-General organized informal meetings on Cyprus in Geneva and New York, alongside a tripartite meeting during the UN General Assembly High Level Week. An informal broader meeting is anticipated soon. A new tripartite meeting occurred in December in Cyprus, with Mara Angela Holgun, the UN Secretary-General's Personal Envoy on Cyprus, and Johannes Hahn, former European Commissioner and Special Envoy for Cyprus, expected to contribute to the settlement process.