Christodoulides, Fidan hold ‘short conversation’ in Paris

President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held a “short conversation” when they met on the sidelines of Tuesday’s Bastille Day celebrations in Paris.

Government sources informed the Cyprus Mail that the pair had met and spoken but said that they were as yet unaware of the content of the discussion.

Newspaper Phileleftheros, meanwhile, reported that they discussed “the Cyprus issue and the European Union’s relations with Turkey”.

The meeting comes with efforts ramping up both on the island and abroad to bring about a resumption of negotiations in earnest to resolve the Cyprus problem. To this end, the European Commission appointed its executive vice president for cohesion Raffaele Fitto as envoy for the Cyprus problem on Monday.

Meanwhile, United Nations envoy Maria Angela Holguin is undertaking a round of contacts with stakeholders, with the UN having undertaken a “new initiative” in recent weeks and months with the aim of bringing about a resumption of negotiations in earnest.

She was expected to meet European Council President Antonio Costa on Monday, though it is currently unclear whether that meeting took place.

Last week, both Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called on Erdogan to “seize the renewed momentum” to bring about a solution to the Cyprus problem, when the trio met on the sidelines of last week’s Nato leaders’ summit in Ankara.

Holguin is expected to return to the island in the coming weeks to hold more meetings with Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman, with a view to convening an enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem at some point this summer.

Such a meeting would involve the island’s two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom, and the UN, though both Cypriot leaders have stressed that the meeting is not an end in itself.

Christodoulides has said the meeting’s outcome must entail “the resumption of talks”, while Erhurman called for “results” to be achieved at it.

Holguin has called on Cypriots to “seize this historic opportunity to negotiate a lasting solution”, saying that Guterres is “evaluating what could be the next phases that will convince both parties to take concrete steps towards a final solution”.