United Nations envoy Maria Angela Holguin will return to Cyprus next week, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric confirmed on Friday evening.

He confirmed that she will meet President Nikos Christodoulides on September 12 and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on September 15, while holding meetings with “other Cypriot officials” during her stay on the island.

Her visit had initially been scheduled for September 1, but UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus (Unficyp) spokesman Aleem Siddique informed the Cyprus Mail at the time that this plan had to be postponed due to an “unforeseen issue”.

Her meetings with Christodoulides and Tatar will come ahead of a planned trilateral meeting involving the pair and Guterres.

No fixed date has yet been set for that meeting, though the 80th session of the UN general assembly is set to start on Monday, and the “high-level week” is due to begin two weeks later, on September 23.

During that week, Christodoulides, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis are all expected to give addresses to the general assembly alongside leaders of all other UN member states.

At last year’s general assembly, Erdogan had been among the first speakers and had said that the federal model for a solution to the Cyprus problem has “completely lost its validity”.

He added that there are “two separate states and two separate peoples on the island” of Cyprus, and that “the acquired rights of the Turkish Cypriots, namely sovereign equality and their equal international status, must be re-committed, and their isolation must end.”

Christodoulides had responded in his speech the following day, saying that “illegality stemming from invasion, aggression and use of force cannot be recognised”, and that “international law is not a la carte”.

Mitsotakis then spoke towards the end of the week, saying that a two-state solution to the Cyprus problem “cannot happen and cannot be accepted”, and reaffirming his country’s support for a bizonal, bicommunal federal solution.

Such a solution, he said, must entail “one sovereignty, one citizenship, and one international personality, in accordance with the UN Security Council’s resolutions.”

After this year’s general assembly, a further enlarged meeting, involving Cyprus’ two sides, the UN, and the island’s three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, is set to take place before the end of the year, likely after the Turkish Cypriot leadership election, which is set to take place on October 19.

That election will see Tatar be challenged by former Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Tufan Erhurman, who advocates for a return to negotiations based on a federal solution.

Holguin most recently visited Cyprus in July, holding meetings with both Christodoulides and Tatar ahead of the most recent enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem in New York.