Christodoulides hints at ‘behind-the-scenes’ meetings to make Cyprus problem progress

President Nikos Christodoulides on Monday evening refused to rule out the prospect of developments of note occurring on the Cyprus problem this week, saying that “behind-the-scenes” meetings on the sidelines of the Unted Nations general assembly in New York may hold the key to such developments happening. “What I can tell you is that I did indeed mention that we are not ruling out positive developments, because, from the moment we arrived here, we have observed numerous meetings, which I would characterise as behind the scenes, or out of the public eye,” he said. Those meetings, he said, are “aimed at creating the conditions this week, with all involved parties present in New York, for positive developments to occur”. “Such positive developments can mean nothing other than an announcement regarding the resumption of talks, picking up from where they left off at Crans-Montana, through an enlarged meeting,” he said, in reference to the most recent round of negotiations on the Cyprus problem, which collapsed at the Swiss ski resort in 2017. 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We see him pursuing this through concrete actions. We are here to support his efforts, and let us hope for a positive outcome,” he said. Guterres promised to convene enlarged meeting ‘after adequate progress’ UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had said during his visit to the island in July that an enlarged meeting, involving the island’s two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the UN, will be convened “after adequate progress” is achieved on confidence-building measures, the meeting’s methodology and the substance of the talks. Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman have met on three separate occasions since Guterres’ visit to the island, but no concrete progress has been achieved in that time, with the sides still in open disagreement over the meaning of political equality, crossing points, and the methodology of the talks. In addition, throughout the summer, initiatives had been taken by the Greek Cypriot side to cancel international events being held by the Turkish Cypriot community, including a children’s football camp organised by FC Barcelona and a music festival in Kyrenia. This prompted Erhurman to warn that such initiatives “undermine trust” between thw island’s two sides, stressing last week that “if we wish to move the process forward, it is crucial to create the ‘conducive climate’ mentioned by Guterres”. Nonetheless, this week, Erhurman said that Guterres demanded that progress be made on seven separate topics on the Cyprus problem, and declared that the Turkish Cypriot side is ready to make progress on all seven. Those seven topics, he said, are the issues of crossing points, mine clearance, the citizenship of children born of “mixed marriages”, sports, joint disaster response, and a joint mechanism to combat irregular migration. Both Erhurman and Christodoulides will meet Guterres this week He then confirmed that he will meet Guterres in New York this week, before emphasising that he remains set against the idea of holding an enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem “which would yield no results”. “We have no right to subject Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots to what we experienced at the 2004 Annan plan referendum and in Crans-Montana in 2017. The secretary-general also came to our point of view, making it clear that he would not convene a fruitless five-plus-one meeting,” he said. Such a meeting, he said, will not take place “without progress on confidence-building measures, methodology and substantive issues”, with “five-plus-one” another term used to describe an enlarged meeting. Asked whether he remains hopeful that progress can be made, he said, “I said I am hopeful and I stand by this statement”. “My hope is not because I get along very well with Christodoulides or because we have become very close. We have made contacts in ten and a half months which could not be made in the five years before. We are able to talk,” he said. He added that after he was elected last October, “Christodoulides had said, ‘let’s start off from where we left off in Crans-Montana’, but we explained that there has been an erosion of trust for nine years, and that confidence-building measures should come first, followed by methodology, and finally, negotiations”.