Crossing points at Louroujina, Karavostasi to open, leaders to meet Guterres

President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman on Monday agreed that two new crossing points, south of the village of Louroujina, near Larnaca, and south of the village of Karavostasi, west of Lefka, will open simultaneously, at a tripartite meeting of the pair and United Nations envoy Maria Angela Holguin. The agreement was announced by UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus (Unficyp) spokesman Aleem Siddique, who also announced that both leaders will hold a tripartite meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “in the coming weeks”, with that meeting likely the pair’s last with Guterres before his term concludes at the end of next month. Louroujina is the southernmost inhabited Turkish Cypriot village, and its crossing point will connect it to the Greek Cypriot village of Lympia, which is located less than 400 metres from its southernmost edge. The village of Karavostasi sits on Morphou bay, and will be linked to the village of Kambos, which is in the foothills of the Troodos mountains, by its new crossing point. As well as the new crossing points and the planned meeting, Siddique announced that the leaders “agreed to proceed with he sharing of archival material through the technical committee on cultural heritage” and also agreed to “moving ahead with environmental projects”. Those projects, he said, will be implemented by the technical committee on the environment. He also announced that the “Imagine” programme, the bicommunal education project which had been frozen since the Turkish Cypriot side withdrew from it in 2022, will recommence “under the auspices of the technical committee on education”. Additionally, he announced that the technical committee on crisis management will “create a mechanism for rapid response to emergencies”, and that the technical committee on cultural heritage will restore “specific Maronite churches” and “an Armenian monastery”. That monastery is understood to be the Sourp Magar monastery, which is located in the Kyrenia district. More to follow…