Disy welcomes confidence-building deal but say ‘talks remain distant’

Disy leader Annita Demetriou and former party leader Averof Neophytou have both welcomed agreement on new confidence-building measures, but said the steps alone will not restart reunification negotiations. Demetriou, writing on X, called the agreement “a positive step that keeps a window of opportunity open” on the Cyprus problem. She said it had created “the prospect of a meeting between the two leaders and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, or even a new informal five-party conference”. The priority, she said, remained “substantive progress that would lead to the resumption of negotiations and a fair and sustainable solution”. Neophytou, in a separate post, also welcomed the progress and said it opened the way for a trilateral meeting with Guterres and a possible five-party conference. “We still have a long way to go before negotiations can resume,” he said. The measures were agreed on Monday when President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman agreed that two new crossing points will open at the same time, one south of the village of Louroujina near Larnaca and the other south of Karavostasi, west of Lefka. Louroujina’s crossing will link it with Lympia, and the Karavostasi crossing will connect that village, on Morphou bay, with Kambos in the foothills of the Troodos mountains. The UN said the leaders also agreed to share archival material through the technical committee on cultural heritage and to move ahead with environmental projects run by the technical committee on the environment. The bicommunal Imagine education programme, frozen since the Turkish Cypriot side withdrew in 2022, will restart under the technical committee on education. The technical committee on crisis management will create a mechanism for rapid response to emergencies and the cultural heritage committee will restore Maronite churches and the Sourp Magar Armenian monastery in the Pentadaktylos.