President Nikos Christodoulides “has answers for all issues” related to ongoing talks on the Cyprus problem, including Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman’s four points to restart negotiations, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said on Saturday.

He was speaking after Christodoulides and United Nations envoy Maria Angela Holguin met earlier in the day and said that discussions on Erhurman’s four points, and other matters related to restarting formal negotiations, will be discussed at a tripartite meeting involving Christodoulides, Holguin and Erhurman on Thursday.

“The goal remains the resumption of substantive negotiations from the point at which they were interrupted in Crans-Montana,” he said in reference to the most recent round of negotiations which collapsed in the Swiss ski resort in 2017.

Erhurman’s four points, sometimes referred to as “preconditions” – a term he resents – foresee that the Greek Cypriot side accept political equality, time-limit negotiations, and preserve all past agreements, and that the UN guarantee that embargoes placed on the Turkish Cypriots be lifted if the Greek Cypriot side leaves the negotiating table again.

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Letymbiotis was also asked whether “specific suggestions” were made during Saturday morning’s meetings. He replied that a “very specific discussion” had been held both “on the substance of the goal of restarting negotiations and on the preparation of an enlarged meeting”.

That enlarged meeting, the third of its kind since the start of this year, will see Cyprus’ two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the UN meet to discuss the Cyprus problem, and will most likely take place next month.

Additionally, Letymbiotis described Saturday’s meeting as “very good and constructive”, and pointed out that “immediately after our country, [Holguin] will visit Athens and Ankara”, and that she will also meet the European Union’s Cyprus problem envoy Johannes Hahn.

These contacts, he said, will be held with a view to organising and setting a date for the next enlarged meeting, which he said, “should be convened as soon as possible”, as “its composition is one which allows, and essentially imposes, a discussion on the substance”.

He added that Christodoulides will convene a National Council meeting on Friday to inform the leaders of Greek Cypriot political parties of progress on the Cyprus problem in light of Thursday’s meeting with Holguin and Erhurman.

Earlier in the day, Holguin had said she is “quite optimistic” for the next steps in efforts towards a resolution to the Cyprus problem.

She said that preparation work is underway ahead of a tripartite meeting involving her, Christodoulides, and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman which is set to take place on Thursday, with that meeting described by Holguin as the first of its kind in “many years”.

This, she said, is “a good sign”.

“I hope now that if they can deliver things and move forward, the community has to support the leaders in that direction, so I am quite optimistic,” she added, before saying that “we will see” how Thursday’s meeting will play out.

She also described Saturday’s meeting as very productive and said she is “very happy” to have returned to the island, while also speaking of how those involved have been inspired by the retreat she held with the bicommunal technical committee on youth in the Jordanian capital, Amman, in November.

Additionally, she said she had wished Christodoulides a “very happy birthday”, with Christodoulides having turned 52 years old on Saturday.

Her meeting with Christodoulides follows on from a meeting she held with Erhurman on Friday, with Erhurman after that meeting having lamented a “lack of results” in efforts to resolve the issue of long tailbacks and congestions at the Ayios Dhometios crossing point in western Nicosia.

Speaking to journalists after the meeting, he said he had told Christodoulides at their meeting last month that “problems could be significantly alleviated” at the crossing point “if the three cabins on the southern side were staffed permanently”.

However, he said, the police cabins on the southern side of the crossing point are “still not working efficiently”.

In addition to the matter of the existing Ayios Dhometios crossing point, he said that he and Holguin had also discussed potential new crossing points in the eastern Nicosia suburb of Mia Milia, in the village of Louroujina, between Nicosia and Larnaca, and in the town of Athienou.