‘Both sides agree in principle’ for more frequent leaders’ meetings

Both sides of Cyprus’ divide agree in principle that meetings between President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman should take place on a more frequent basis going forward, with a view to organising an enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem, the Cyprus Mail has learned. Following Thursday’s meeting of Greek Cypriot chief negotiator Menelaos Menelaou and Erhurman’s undersecretary Mehmet Dana, competent sources informed the newspaper that both representatives expressed the view that leaders’ meeting should take place more frequently. As such, it is now expected that the exact frequency of those meetings will likely be decided when both leaders next meet on Wednesday next week. Previously, Erhurman had called for leaders’ meetings to take place once a week so as to complete what he described as the “homework” set by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during his visit to the island last month. Guterres had said after his visit that a new enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem will be convened “after adequate progress” is achieved on the matters of confidence-building measures, the meeting’s methodology, and the substance of the talks. This is the “homework” to which Erhurman has since referred. Following Erhurman’s call for Christodoulides to meet him once a week, presidential press officer Victor Papadopoulos had said that Christodoulides is “ready” to hold weekly meetings with Erhurman with the aim of achieving the requisite progress for an enlarged meeting to be convened. “Anything that can lead us to the goal of resuming talks and resolving the Cyprus problem, the president of the republic is ready to do so,” he said. Aside from the matter of weekly meetings, the sources told the Cyprus Mail that “nothing which would change the situation on the ground” was decided at Thursday’s negotiators’ meeting, and that Menelaou and Dana had also discussed the agenda of next Wednesday’s leaders’ meeting. With Thursday’s meeting now having been held, no further negotiators’ meetings are planned ahead of next week’s leaders’ meeting, though the sources told the newspaper that both Menelaou and Dana will remain on standby and ready to convene another meeting with one another “should needs arise” between now and next Wednesday. Earlier, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis had promised that Christodoulides will approach that meeting with a “constructive attitude”, with it hoped that next week’s meeting will constitute a step towards the convening of an enlarged meeting. That meeting will involve the island’s two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the United Nations. On the matter of what Guterres described as “adequate progress”, Papadopoulos had initially said that while confidence-building measures “naturally help create a climate”, they are “not a prerequisite” for an enlarged meeting to be convened. However, UN Cyprus problem envoy Maria Angela Holguin then pushed back on this, saying that the implementation of confidence-building measures is an “indispensable condition” to be fulfilled ahead of an enlarged meeting. “Confidence-building measures should not be seen merely as symbolic steps which improve the atmosphere between the two communities, but rather as practical tools which test the viability of a future political order,” she told Turkey’s Anka news agency. She added that confidence-building measures are “important in demonstrating whether cooperation works in practice” and said that “such initiatives help create the collaborative habits which a future solution will need”. Chief among those possible confidence-building measures is the possible opening of crossing points between the island’s two sides, on which talks remained deadlocked over the question of whether to break up the package of four locations upon which the sides had agreed last year. On this matter, the Greek Cypriot side proposed removing Louroujina, northwest of Larnaca, from the package of four, instead opening crossing points near Athienou, and in the eastern Nicosia suburbs of Mia Milia and Aglandjia, and the Turkish Cypriot side flatly refused to entertain any discussions which did not include all four agreed upon locations.