The United Nations is “working hard to get results” on confidence-building measures regarding the Cyprus problem ahead of next week’s enlarged meeting in New York, UN envoy Maria Angela Holguin said on Monday.

“We are working hard to get some results next week. I will continue to work this afternoon and Wednesday afternoon with the negotiators,” she said after meeting President Nikos Christodoulides at the presidential palace.

She added that she believes that “something important can be achieved”, having discussed “stronger measures for the future” with both Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar earlier in the morning.

Asked whether that may entail the opening of a crossing point between Cyprus’ two sides, she said she will “work on this this afternoon”.

Meanwhile, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said it is “very important” that Holguin visited Cyprus on Monday, before adding that both Greek Cypriot negotiator Menelaos Menelaou and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart Gunes Onar would meet later in the day.

“For us, the goal with which we come to this multilateral meeting is to preserve the mobility achieved in the last two years, but also to intensify it further, constituting another step towards the goal of resuming negotiations from where they were interrupted,” he said of next week’s enlarged meeting.

“Although Tatar’s statements over the past two years had never allowed for even a trace of optimism”, various initiatives and the “responsible attitude” demonstrated by the Republic had enabled progress on the Cyprus issue, he added.

“We have said it many times that the confidence-building measures are important, but in no case do they replace or can restore the substantive negotiations,” he said.

He also passed comment on Holguin’s recent trips to Brussels and Paris, saying, “what is important is the contacts she had in Brussels, in the European Union, the European factor, the Euro-Turkish aspect”.

He added that in this regard particularly, the appointment of EU Cyprus problem envoy Johannes Hahn could play “a catalytic role” in Holguin’s ongoing efforts.

After meeting Tatar earlier in the day, Holguin had expressed hope for “significant developments in the measures decided in March”, referring to the previous enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem, which had been held in Geneva.

She said the UN’s efforts primarily concerned the “wellbeing of the island and for people to have a better life.

“We hope that the leaders also share this perception,” Holguin said.

Tatar, meanwhile, stressed that something of note must be achieved in New York.

“So many people are going to New York for a two-day meeting. Since we are all going that far, something should at least come out of that meeting,” he said, with the hope for a new crossing point central in his plans.

He said he had been “really disappointed” by the lack of progress since March on the matter of a new crossing point, and that he had raised this matter with Holguin.

“Sixty-five per cent of vehicle crossings are made through the [Ayios Dhometios] crossing point in Nicosia. There is congestion there, and I have difficulty understanding why the other side is still responding negatively after the attempts I have made,” he said.

He also reiterated the Turkish Cypriot side’s position on the matter of a bicommunal solar farm, which had been agreed upon in Geneva in March but which had hit the buffers after the island’s two sides could not agree on how the energy allocated to the Turkish Cypriots would be routed to the north.

Tatar on Monday stressed he will travel to New York with a “constructive approach” but said that he had once again expressed “discomfort” to Holguin regarding the recent arrests made by the Republic of people accused of selling Greek Cypriot-owned property in the north.

During her visit to Athens in June, she updated Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis on the developments, saying that while there had been progress on certain matters since the meeting in March, there had been a “failure to achieve the expected progress” on others.

UN special representative and head of the peacekeeping force in Cyprus (Unficyp) Colin Stewart, who is to retire in August, will travel to New York and brief the security council for the last time on the Cyprus issue on July 14.

The expanded meeting will begin with a dinner on July 16, followed by bilateral talks on the morning of 17 July and a subsequent plenary session.