Early April now suggested as date for informal summit

An informal five-party meeting on the Cyprus problem could take place in the first week of April, a Greek foreign ministry official said on Thursday.

Ministry spokesman Alexandros Papaioannou said the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has not yet proposed a date for the meeting, but it will be taking place after the March 25 European Council, possibly in the first half of April.

The meeting, between the two divided communities and the island’s three guarantor powers, Greece, Britain, and Turkey, and overseen by the UN, is the latest effort to restart reunification talks, which collapsed in the summer of 2017.

If it goes ahead, it would be against a backdrop of new developments since 2017, including Turkish insistence to table a two-state solution for discussion, and the opening of part of the closed-off town of Varosha last year.