Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar will travel to New York on Friday ahead of a planned tripartite meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and President Nikos Christodoulides.

The tripartite meeting will take place on Saturday, with Tatar set to hold a one-on-one meeting with Guterres on Friday after his arrival.

He will then return to Cyprus on Sunday.

Christodoulides, meanwhile, will hold his one-on-one meeting with Guterres on Thursday to discuss the latest developments on the Cyprus issue.

Saturday’s meeting will be held with a view to arrange a third enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem this year, involving Cyprus’ two sides, the UN, and the island’s three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom, likely taking place in late November.

That enlarged meeting will take place after the Turkish Cypriot leadership election 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.

However, to do so, he will likely have to convince Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said in his speech to the UN general assembly on Tuesday night that a solution to the Cyprus problem “cannot be built on the federal model”.