Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis on Wednesday said there “cannot be any conditions” placed on negotiations to solve the Cyprus problem, “if what we are really interested in is progress”.

He was asked to comment on Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman’s four points to restart negotiations, and stressed that President Nikos Christodoulides will arrive at Thursday’s meeting with Erhurman and United Nations envoy Maria Angela Holguin “fully prepared and having worked out all those conditions and information which cann contribute even more constructively to this effort”.

“As [Christodoulides] himself said … and maintaining the same approach that we have been following for the last two and a half years, precisely because we want progress to be made on the Cyprus issue – and it is not through public statements, nor is it in public that this progress can be achieved – we are coming, President Christodoulides is coming fully prepared,” he said.

However, he said, “beyond that, if what we are really interested in is progress, is the resumption of negotiations, is the maintenance of the only framework recognised by the international community, which are the UN security council’s resolutions, there cannot be any conditions”.

Related Articles

He added that instead, “what should be at the centre of everything is the honest dialogue and presentation of positions, arguments, and above all the full harmonisation with international law, the principles and values of the European Union”.

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.

Christodoulides met Holguin most recently on Saturday, with Letymbiotis saying after that meeting that Christodoulides “has answers for all issues” related to the ongoing talks on the Cyprus problem.

“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.

Letymbiotis was also asked on Saturday 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”.

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.

Her meeting with Christodoulides came after 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.