United Nations peacekeeping force in Cyprus (Unficyp) chief Khassim Diagne met Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Kemal Bozay in Ankara, as efforts geared towards bringing about a resumption of negotiations in earnest on the Cyprus problem continue.

No formal statements were made after the meeting, but it comes with a large proportion of the major players of global politics set to descend on Ankara next week for the Nato leaders’ summit.

The summit will be hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while notable expected attendees include United States President Donald Trump, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, European Council President Antonio Costa, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

While Cyprus is not expected to top next week’s agenda, the summit will take place with discussions regarding security guarantees in a post-solution Cyprus centring on the idea of those guarantees being provided through a Nato-based structure.

Those guarantees may come in the form of the new Cypriot republic’s accession to Nato, alongside the presence of Nato troops from Turkey, Greece, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States on the island.

UN envoy for the Cyprus problem Maria Angela Holguin, meanwhile, postponed her planned contacts until after the conclusion of the Nato summit, with her next meeting, with Antonio Costa in Brussels, now scheduled for June 13.

However, when questioned on the prospect of Holguin meeting Nato officials while in Brussels, which is also the seat of Nato’s headquarters, and of Nato-based security guarantees in a post-solution Cyprus, a Nato official told the Cyprus Mail that “there are no meetings planned with the envoy and the topic has not been discussed at Nato”.

After completing her contacts in Brussels, it is expected that Holguin will return to Cyprus in the second half of next month, with a view to organising an enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem, involving the island’s two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the UN.

That meeting had initially been pencilled in for the end of next month or the beginning of August and will now likely take pace later in August at the earliest.

These delayed prompted President Nikos Christodoulides on Monday to insist that efforts to bring about a resumption of negotiations in earnest on the Cyprus problem have not been “frozen”.

“The only thing which is certain is that the effort is not frozen, the effort continues. Holguin will go to Brussels on July 13. There is also the Nato summit. All processes are in full swing, with the aim of convening an enlarged meeting, during which the resumption of talks will be announced,” he said.

Diagne’s visit to Turkey on Tuesday, meanwhile, comes with the UN security council expected to deliberate the next reports on the state of Unficyp and the UN’s good offices in Cyprus on July 16.