President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman will meet next Monday, the Cyprus Mail has been informed.

United Nations peacekeeping force in Cyprus (Unficyp) spokesman Aleem Siddique confirmed that the meeting will take place at the residence of Unficyp chief Khassim Diagne, in the buffer zone in western Nicosia.

He added that while Diagne will host the meeting, he will not participate, with the meeting’s format set to be identical to that which the pair held in February at the same location.

The meeting will come with relations somewhat fraught between Christodoulides and Erhurman of late, with the latter having lambasted the former’s statements on Greece’s independence day as “inconsistent, unfounded and unserious”.

Christodoulides had suggested that Turkish Cypriots could only have a say on the future of the two British bases on the island “after they return to the Republic of Cyprus”, and that Greek Cypriots should “utilise the way in which our Greek brothers fought to gain their freedom” in their own endeavours on the Cyprus problem.

In response to Erhurman’s statements, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis had said that “we are not going to enter into a public confrontation, nor are we going to negotiate publicly”.

“We will respectfully continue to position ourselves by putting forward international law, putting forward the constitution of the Republic of Cyprus, putting forward what should be considered self-evident in any other state,” he said.

Asked about the possibility of UN envoy Maria Angela Holguin returning to the island, Letymbiotis had said that Holguin’s schedule will be “made public by her, by the United Nations”.

Both Christodoulides and Erhurman had appraised February’s meeting as “open and honest”, though no concrete results were achieved from it.

In recent months, both leaders have met UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, with Christodoulides saying after his meeting with Guterres that “we must expect developments soon” on the Cyprus problem.

He described the discussion as “very substantive and very productive”, and stressed that he and Guterres “have a common goal … and this goal entails the substance of the Cyprus problem”, before adding that the substance of the Cyprus problem is “where our focus lies”.

Erhurman, meanwhile, had told Guterres that the Turkish Cypriot community is subject to “unfair and illegal isolation” and that this “should be lifted without further delay”.

He had also outlined to Guterres his four points which he says must be met for negotiations on the Cyprus problem to recommence in earnest.

Those four points, sometimes referred to as “preconditions” – a term Erhurman 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.