President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman on Tuesday agreed to jointly attend Saturday’s bicommunal festival in the Larnaca district village of Pyla, following their meeting in the buffer zone.
The pair also agreed to jointly attend forthcoming meetings of the bicommunal technical committee on cultural heritage, the bicommunal technical committee on youth, and the steering committee on the civil society consultative body, before holding another one-on-one meeting next week.
According to the United Nations, Tuesday’s meeting was “held … in a positive atmosphere”, with both leaders “looking forward to the upcoming visit” of UN Cyprus problem envoy Maria Angela Holguin.
Prior to the meeting, Christodoulides had said that his 19 points for discussion on the Cyprus problem “remain on the table”.
“Of course they are on the table. The [United Nations] secretary-general is aware, and so is Erhurman, who reserved the right to give me an answer at our next meeting,” he said.
He added that he had “specifically submitted them before we went to New York” for the UN’s high-level week at the end of September, but said that “despite our wishes, it was not possible to hold a meeting there”.
“Therefore, today, we will discuss these matters, and, naturally, any other topic Erhurman wishes to raise. We have no issue with that. We are not afraid of dialogue, discussions, or negotiations,” he said.
On this front, he waved away suggestions that only the seven issues upon which Guterres had demanded progress when he visited the island in July would be up for discussion at Tuesday’s meeting, saying that “the agenda is determined by mutual agreement, and no such agreement exists”.
Christodoulides promised ‘positive attitude’ ahead of meeting
“I am going with a very positive attitude and political will to pick up the discussion where we left off during our last meeting, which was positive, prior to our trip to New York, and I reiterate my hope that some concrete, positive results will emerge,” he said.
Earlier, Erhurman had said that “the agenda for today’s meeting is the seven proposals for confidence-building measures which Guterres voiced on the island at the end of July”.
“As is known, we have already accepted six of the seven proposals. We are attending the meeting with the aim of conducting a result-oriented discussion,” he said.
Those seven issues were crossing points, mine clearance, the citizenship of children born of mixed marriages, sports, joint disaster response and a joint mechanism to combat irregular migration.
Christodoulides’ 19 points are not publicly known, with Akel leader Stefanos Stefanou having said after the most recent National Council meeting that he had been informed of them, but that he had agreed not to disclose them.
Erhurman, meanwhile, described them as “throwing a spanner in the works”.
Tuesday’s meeting was the first since the UN high-level week, with the two sides having ended that week further apart than they started it, prompting UN Cyprus envoy Maria Angela Holguin to warn that “it is clear that the favourable window of opportunity we had throughout last year and earlier this year is gradually closing”.
She also warned that “rising tensions in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean could have negative consequences for Cyprus”, and that “the diplomatic space which is allowing for the revival of dialogue may not remain open for ever”.